


Lanterna Magica

by Smarterinabsentia



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, Magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2020-01-20 14:45:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 34,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18527191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smarterinabsentia/pseuds/Smarterinabsentia
Summary: With Kara abroad, seventeen-year-old Alex Danvers finally has a moment to breathe and live like a 'normal' teenager. She takes a summer job at The Orpheum, an ornate revival theater owned by film curator, Hank Henshaw. But Alex hasn't even finished with her first shift when she meets the theater's beautiful and arrogant projectionist, Maggie Sawyer-- a girl with a knack for old machines and a mysterious past.





	1. The Vamp

 

“Alex, for the last time, you don’t need to worry about money.”

Alex ignored Eliza, slipping her arms into her jacket as she hurried down the stairs. This wasn’t the last time Eliza would say this. Eliza wouldn’t stop trying to dissuade her until the heat death of the universe. She snatched her car keys from the post cap on the banister, suppressing a sigh as her mother continued.

“You’ve got essays to write, the NASA camp at the Redfield Institute, and that doesn’t even count the extracurriculars."

 Alex squeezed the key ring for reassurance, a round-eyed creature with blue fur and a crown of laurels. Beebo, the God of War, Vickie had named it. It was a bit of a craze that summer, creating alternate versions of the Beebo mania from their childhood. There was Beebo, the Vampire Slayer and Beebo as Chucky. Vickie had decided that war god would give Alex the courage she needed to face Eliza, and so far, it was working.

She’d held onto it when she’d first told Eliza about getting a job that summer, and Eliza had, of course, objected.

“You didn’t care when Kara was working at Mesa Taco and Surf last year.”  

“She needs friends,” Eliza had said. As if it had been Alex all along who’d kept Kara cloistered as if Alex hadn’t sacrificed most of her own adolescence taking care of a girl who ate all the best leftovers, who made Alex feel like a leftover.  And now that Kara was gone for the summer, off on that Island with all the women—Jeremiah said she was volunteering in Costa Rica, but that was such bullshit—it was her turn to have a life. To make some money and meet some people outside of school and math camp and Eliza’s laboratory.

She gave Beebo another squeeze and said, “Mom, this _is_ an extracurricular activity.”

A sudden silence caused her to chance a glance up the stairway. Eliza was on the landing, hands on hips, wearing that stubborn yet tolerant expression that always made Alex want to scream.

“A job in a movie theater?” she said, shaking her head. “Alex, you don’t even like movies.”

That part was true. Other than legitimately decent horror and the trash cinema she rented on beat-up VHS tapes at Movie Madhouse, she could barely stomach most of what played at the multiplexes, especially the romcoms she’d been forced to watch at Kara’s behest. If they weren’t full of oldish, horse-faced men inexplicably bagging young beautiful women, their implications were often morally reprehensible.

“Let me just repeat,” she’d said to Kara, “she winds up with the guy who puts her bookstore out of business. And who gets email notifications like that? No one. Ever.”

But as Mr. Henshaw had explained during that all-too-brief job interview, The Orpheum wasn’t just an ordinary theater. Built in 1927, it was an opulent screen palace with Persian carpets and art nouveau posters whose goddesses loomed over the lobby like the Muses or the Fates. Alex had caught herself lingering on the vamp, Theda Bara, baring a knee beneath a silken, silvery dress.

 _It’s just because she looks cool,_ she told herself. _She's goth._

“Not a lot survives of her work,” Henshaw said. He looked away as Alex blushed and readjusted her attention. “But we’ve got an old reel of _The Vampire_ and we’re patching together the few remaining seconds of _Cleopatra._ ”

“You mean people threw those away?”

Henshaw smiled a little sadly. “Sometimes. They burned the old rushes to make room down at the studios. In other cases, the reels were stored badly and decayed or the nitrate ignited and took out entire warehouses.” He gave Theda another wistful glance. “So much is lost before people even begin to appreciate it. It’s always a race against time.”  

Henshaw explained that he worked in restoration, often flying to Paris to meet with Henry Langlois of the Cinémathèque Française—Alex didn’t know who that was, but it sounded really cool. So this was better than an extracurricular, she thought, this was an education. She tossed her shoulders back and turned to face her mother. “They’re not movies, Mom. They’re _films_.”

Eliza lowered her head and sighed, but a look of surprise and maybe even mild admiration flickered across her features. “Just make sure to refill the tank on the way home, will you?”

#

As she had seen during the interview, The Orpheum wasn’t an ordinary theater. It was a palace built in the Moorish style of the 1920s. The neon sign wound up the marquee like smoke from a genie's lamp, and the auditorium had an orchestra pit that was still in use. 

“The local philharmonic helps us out on our silent revivals,” Henshaw said, walking her past the rows of antique velvet chairs. He stopped and ran his hand over the gilded railing that hid the musicians. “We had a new score composed for Murnau’s _Sunrise_ last year, a thing of beauty. Tonight, though, we’re showing something a little lighter.” He clapped his hands together and turned. Alex followed him back up the aisle, her eyes drawn to the light from the projection booth. There was someone watching them from inside, a young woman with a mane of dark hair. She caught Alex’s gaze, and Alex felt herself freeze, drawn to the girl in much the way she had been drawn to Theda Bara’s dark and sultry stare.

Henshaw continued, “we’ll start you here as an usher at first, helping the latecomers, cleaning up the messes. When you’re used to that, you can work the concessions, too. Also, take what you want from the soda and popcorn machines, but use the courtesy cups to keep the inventory straight.”

"Right,” Alex said, sounding distant even to herself.

Suddenly, there was an enormous crack of thunder and a popping sound as a cascade of shadows veered down at them from all sides of the auditorium. Alex ducked, letting out what was a decidedly girly scream as hundreds of bats divebombed her and Henshaw from the ceiling, the balcony, came funneling out from the magic lanterns that hovered above the red velvet curtains. Her training kicked in then, that battery of self-defense courses in which her parents had enrolled her. She grabbed Henshaw and threw him to the ground, her hand flailing at the creatures as she attempted to cover him.

“Alex?” Henshaw said.

Alex snatched something out of the air, a wing, a wing that crinkled like paper in her fingers. She opened her eyes and looked around her, shoving herself off of Henshaw in a flush of horror and embarrassment. The bats were paper. They had swung down at them from thin lines on some type of Rube Goldberg contraption.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Henshaw!” Alex said. “I thought they were real. My Mom is always warning us about rabies.”

Henshaw leaned up on his elbows and laughed. “I should be the one to apologize,” he said, “and call me Hank.”

Alex got to her feet and gave Henshaw a hand up. She glanced back up at the projectionist’s booth and saw the girl there, hand over her stomach. She was laughing hysterically.

 _I’m sure that was a hoot,_ Alex thought, suddenly bothered that she cared what this stranger thought of her. She wondered if that girl had been behind this little trick.

Henshaw stood and lifted his hand and said, “You can come out now, Schott! Your contraption is a success!”

Henshaw clapped a hand on her back, as they turned to see a young, goofily handsome man in a sweater vest poke his head up from the orchestra pit. He looked, Alex thought, a little like a young Gene Kelly.

He gave a brief, awkward wave. “Sorry. I pressed the wrong button.” Then he squeezed his hands together nervously. “But what did you think?”

“Very real,” Henshaw said.

“Very,” Alex echoed.

The young man hopped out of the pit, hurrying toward them with a relieved grin on his face.  

“Alex, this is Winn Schott, resident ‘Toy Man’ or ‘Special Ops William Castle,’ as I like to call him. He helps with the lighting, the sound, and the little extras we like to make our screenings special.”

“I call this one Bat-O-Rama,” Winn said, shaking Alex’s hand. He turned back to Henshaw. “So what do you think? Should I let this puppy go during the storm sequence or the big finale?”

 “What’s the mo…um, the film?” Alex asked.

“The movie,” Winn said, “is _The Bat_ , starring Agnes Moorehead and Vincent Price. A locked room black and white mystery with a tinge of the supernatural. Cozier than a thriller, but we don't want people getting too comfortable, do we?”

“Of course not,” Alex said. She liked him already. She glanced up at the projector window. The light was off now and the girl was gone. “Is she a part of this?" 

“Maggie?” Winn said, frowning slightly. "Nah, she’s got more important things to do.”

 _Maggie_ , Alex thought. She looked like a Maggie. And it made sense. Even from this vantage point, the girl--Maggie-- looked like the kind of person who liked to lord it over others. She shook herself out of it. She hadn't even met this girl yet, and she was already feeling cornered, and maybe, just a little bit intrigued.


	2. Red Vines and Space Werewolves

Hank introduced her to Mona, a somewhat dizzy girl with the voice of a gangster’s moll, who sported a T-Shirt bearing Lon Chaney Jr.  She passed Alex a loose-fitting necktie that reminded her of _Annie Hall._ Alex had seen it on cable one rained-in Sunday afternoon and was horrified to learn that not only had another balding, unfunny man gotten the girl, he'd stolen the Oscar from _Star Wars_ in the bargain. The nametag on the tie was another matter.

“Fred?” Alex said. 

“Ohhh,” Mona said, “Sorry. That was Fred’s. He kinda disappeared on us last week. I’ll get you another one later.”

Names aside, Alex's first shift went smoothly enough, even when she tracked a trail of smashed Junior Mints across the carpet and slipped in a slick of popcorn grease. There were "spots" on the auditorium floor, Winn warned her, areas that no matter how often they cleaned, were akin to wading across algae-coated creek bottoms.

During her breaks, she explored the narrow corridors in the basement—old smuggler’s tunnels, it was rumored—and took in the ornate décor Hank had lovingly restored. Winn's Bat-O-Rama was a success in both screenings and Alex enjoyed watching the audience hurl popcorn into the air, the lovers pressing their faces into the shoulders and necks. At the multiplexes, everything was impersonal. They made you fill your drink around the corner, stand in a pool of artificial butter while you pumped the foul stuff over day-old popcorn. It was nice, she thought, that Hank insisted on doing things old school.

The audience for _The Bat_ was a mix of the hipster kids from the local liberal arts school, vacationers, and retirees enjoying the nostalgia. But as the midnight show neared, the clientele shifted into canoodling teenagers, sticky palms clasped together as they waited in line. And Alex soon recognized the smell of burning horse manure mixed with peanut butter. 

"Stoners and lovers," Winn said, as he gnawed on the end of a Red Vine. "The Orpheum's secret cash cow. You ready for the make-out movie?”

 “The what?” Alex said.

Winn gave an expression of mock beleaguerment. “Hank pulls in a chunk of change through the midnight shows. A lot of people in need of privacy--if you know what I mean." He glanced at his watch, his face falling. “Hope things start on time. Sawyer’s none-too-pleased.”

 “Why?” Alex heard a tremor in her voice. She was a little too curious about this Maggie. Maggie, who’d made herself seem all the more mysterious by staying holed up in the projection booth like a phantom in the wings. To Alex’s knowledge, she hadn’t emerged once during the entire evening.

Winn leaned in, his hand partially covering his mouth. “Sawyer is a Grade A snob. Thinks she’s above screening anything that isn’t _Citizen Kane_ or Chantal…Ack...Eich…”

“Akerman." It was Mona. She strolled up and snatched the remainder of the Red Vine from Winn's hand, pointing the end to her teeth. “Little spot there, buddy.”

Winn, who had a chunk of red licorice capping an incisor, snapped his mouth shut and began fishing for it with his tongue.

Alex turned to Mona.  "A different movie?"

" _Feral_ ," Mona beamed. "I am stoked.”

“Oh.” Alex knew it.  _Feral_  was a werewolf-in-space thing from Italy and an obvious _Alien_ rip-off. She’d seen the trailer once--a wolfman, hatching from an enormous egg, covered in slime and looking even more confused than the audience _._ Maybe Maggie was right in this case. 

Winn sighed and reached into his satchel, removing a rubber werewolf mask. “I'm out of ideas on this one, Danvers. If it’s a good crowd, I’ll do a run through the aisles, try to wake them up.” He patted her on the shoulder. “On the upside, it's always a mellow crowd from here on out."

A mere twenty minutes into _Feral_ , just as Alex imagined the Space Werewolf was likelyleaping from his Cadbury birthing matrix, she heard a strange sound issuing from the auditorium.

_Asssss! Ikaaasssss!_

She stepped up closer to the door.

_"Focaaassss!"_

The lobby had emptied out. Winn was on a break, and Hank was sequestered in his office in the basement. Mona had long since closed up concessions and gone in to ogle the werewolf. She had a thing for hirsute men, she explained, and wouldn’t be out until the house lights went on. 

Alex felt a knot in her stomach and crept closer to the door. It swung open, nearly clocking her in the face as a frazzled hippy woman emerged, gesturing wildly as if she was trying to get the motion sensors on an airplane to flush the toilet.

"It’s all haze in there, Sweetie.”

"I'm sorry?" Alex said. She took another step back. The woman reeked of pot and those horrible carob ‘brownies’ Eliza had baked during her childhood. Kara’s sweet tooth had thankfully put a stop to that.

"The movie, Sweetie. It's all blurry. Best tell the boy upstairs."

“Boy?”

The door swung open again and a bearded man emerged and stared at Alex as if she had just insulted his firstborn child. “Boy meaning ‘Oh boy the film’s jammed!’ That’s what she means! Go tell the projectionist. He doesn’t seem to have noticed!”

He gave her an exasperated shrug and they both went back in, the door falling shut, but not before Alex heard the telltale warbling of the film jamming in the machine. She’d become familiar with that sound in Mrs. Queller’s Family Planning class. Queller liked to duck out for cigarette breaks, and would often leave the class watching 1950s educational films, usually about how to do chores and rear children while wearing an apron over a party dress. One of them had been titled _Yes, Ladies! You, Too, Can Have it All!_

“Shit,” she said. "Shit, shit, shit." _Eliza’s going to have a field day if I screw this up._ She hurried up the carpeted ramp leading to the balcony.

The door to projection booth was located between the two that led to the balcony. It looked like the entrance to a freezer or an airlock, Alex thought. She huffed as she pulled it open, then stepped over the threshold into a dim and seemingly empty chamber. The only light came from the flicker of the projector beam.

 “Hello?” she said. 

There was no answer. 

“Anyone here? There’s a problem with the film.”

She heard a whistle from the seats below. The yelling was louder now, organized, and accompanied by the sound of hundreds of feet stomping to the beat of  _We Will Rock You_. 

She hurried over the projector. The thing was a behemoth, its reels like eyes on some Cubist painting. The lens pointing toward the small glass window like the gun on a warship—one in which a mutiny was clearly underway.

"Fix the Flick! Fix the Flick!" The chanting was louder now, and Alex could swear she felt the floor vibrating beneath her feat. She bent forward, squinting at the gears, running her hands over the switches in the dim light. There had to be a way to turn it off.

"Don't.” 

The voice was soft and slightly husky.

Alex turned, blinking in surprise to see Maggie nearly pressed against her in that cramped space. She backed against the controls as they locked eyes. There it was, that mane of dark hair and that arrogant, put-upon expression. Alex averted her eyes, took in that crisp white shirt, its sleeves streaked with oil.

 _Maggie_. 

"You going to let me through or what?” the girl said.

Alex’s mouth opened but before she could speak Maggie had her by the waist and had pushed her aside to switch off the machine. The juddering stopped and the shouts from the crowd grew louder.

 “Fix the flick! Fix! The! Flick!”

“A little late, aren’t we?” Alex finally managed to breathe, and Maggie reared back and let out a half-laugh. 

"We, huh?” She shook it off and turned her attention back on the machine. “Whatever. This thing is a dinosaur. I’ve told Hank again and again that he needs to replace it.”

“You’d better do something now,” Alex said.

“Oh, we will, new kid.”

Suddenly, Maggie’s hands were clasping her wrists. Alex let out a gasp as warm fingers slid down over her own, guiding them to the machine. “Let me show you something.”

“Me?” Alex said.

“Easy. Just go with it.”

Alex inhaled so fast the air nearly caught in her throat. “But I can’t see anything.”

She felt Maggie’s breath on her neck. “No problem. It's all in the hand movements. I bet you sail, don’t you?" 

 _What a question_ , Alex thought. "It’s Midvale, isn’t it?" 

"Just pegged you for a rich kid is all. But that’ s good. You'll get this," she said. "It's like tying a knot. Same moves every time. Slide it under the feed sprocket, over the teeth..."

Alex felt the heat rise to her face as Maggie pressed Alex's fingertips over the leader. She smelled like machine oil and lavender.

“Now, place it flat against the aperture, see?” Her voice was gentle now, “like that.” She took Alex's hands and placed one gently over the lever. "Now close the picture gate and run it over the guide roller, and just a few more steps and..."

Maggie flipped the switch and the machine whirred back to life. The noise from the crowd dwindled into a few appreciative whistles. Then she stepped back and left Alex afloat, her hands still brushing the gears. Alex stood there for a moment. Then turned to see Maggie nodding at the tag on her tie.

"You sure don’t look like a Fred.”

Alex blinked at her. She slapped her hand to her chest as if denying a misplaced compliment.  “This? No. No. It's the other guy's. The guy that left."

"Is that so?" Maggie took a seat on a cot in the corner and regarded her coolly. Sure, she was  arrogant, Alex thought, but up close she was even more beautiful. 

"What it is then?" Maggie's gaze didn’t shift.  

"What is what?” Alex said. She felt her mouth go dry. “I uh, oh,” she touched the nametag again. “This. It’s Alex. I mean, _I’m_ Alex. And you’re Maggie...Obviously.” Her eyes went wide and she wanted to hit herself. Should she have known that already? Would Maggie think she was weird?

 Maggie looked away, seemingly disinterested now. She propped an arm behind her head and reached over to switch on an ancient radio on the table next to the cot. A wire antenna curled off it like a strand of confetti and a stream of music drifted from the grille cloth speaker. 

_And here in the gloom of my lonely room_

_We’re dancing like we used to do…_

She smiled appreciatively. "Haven't heard this one in a while.” 

"I like it," Alex said. "Is that Ella Fitzgerald.”

Maggie’s smile stretched in surprise. She looked back at Alex, her interest piqued once more. “And the Ink Spots. Yeah.”

On the table next to the old radio was an electric kettle, a stash of tea and what looked like an overnight bag, from which sagged the wayward leg of a pair of jeans. Above it, a flannel shirt hung from a hanger, the hem swiping idly over a stack of worn paperbacks.

 _No wonder she doesn’t come out,_ Alex thought. Was this where she lived?

“I couldn’t see you in here earlier?” Alex said.

Maggie’s smile disappeared. She sat up and snatched one of the paperbacks, taking a flashlight from her pack. “That was just your eyes adjusting." She opened the book and lay back again. 

"I guess I'll get back to things," Alex said.

"Sure," Maggie said, her face in the book. "Nice meeting you, Fred."


	3. Dead Blondes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update. Had a couple of deadlines to deal with. The title is a hint more of things to come than the chapter, but I thought it fit. (:

 

 

 

The next morning, her eyes bloodshot and her mind still whirling from the night before, Alex kept her date with Vickie on the pier at Bridey’s point. She felt both intoxicated and intimidated by it all. Sure, she’d considered herself a low-key horror connoisseur, but the conversations passed between Winn and Hank, about pre-Code and Post-Code, about the use of a simple iris trick to transform Jekyll into Hyde, and whether Bette Davis was a raging bitch or just a woman who didn’t suffer fools left her dizzy. She hadn’t felt this way since the first day of that college physics course Eliza enrolled her in during her eighth-grade summer.  It was as if, in addition to the movie world, there was a parallel one of equally fascinating lore--about stars, sure--but also writers, directors, the costumers, and the extras. And then there was Maggie. 

Alex had snuck in a question about her before she left, broaching it as a half-complaint to get into Winn’s good graces. 

“So," she said, trying to keep her tone cool, "what’s her story?” 

Winn, checking his phone and then blinking at his watch as if he was flitting between two time zones, shrugged. “Hank is a stickler, likes to project his old prints on the original equipment. Maggie has the knack for getting those old junkers to work.”

“Does she...live up there?”

“Among other things,” Winn said. He gave her a once over. “You’re lucky you’re not a blonde.”

“What do you mean?”

He looked away and clapped his hands over his face. “Sorry, kid. I’m beat and have said wayyyy too much."  He looked down at the werewolf mask that sagged sadly from his jeans pocket.

What had that meant? Among other things? And the blonde remark, as if she had a taste, and Winn had been looking at her. A girl. Was she--

"Lex!"

Alex looked up to see Vickie padding across the sand in a pair of flip-flops. She’d taken to calling her that lately. Said Alex needed to live a little and trust her bad side. Thus, the new nickname was just the thing. "Notoriety," Vickie had said. "You need it."

Don’t call me that,” Alex said. What Vickie didn't know was that Kara's cousin had put Lex of Lexcorp away. Had his connection to her family been a little less intimate, she might have found the nickname amusing, but instead, it only reminded her of the secrets she had to keep, the pressure that made her feel constrained and set apart.

Vickie sidled up alongside her and lifted her chin with her finger. “Oh, come on. It’s for your own good, girl. Good. Girl. Get it? Womp, womp, wooomp.”

Alex looked into Vickie’s eyes, saw that ne’er-do-well grin and felt her heart expand as the warmth rose to her face. She broke into a grin, secretly delighting as Vickie’s smile stretched a little further. Why could she always do this to her? Vickie turned and slipped her hand through Alex's arm as they walked lazily toward the promenade.

“Now, don’t pee your pants," she said, "but Rick and Ben are waiting for us by The House of Mad."

“What?” Alex said, her smile dropping.

Ben Tramer had been making eyes at her of late. Everyone had been saying so. Ben Tramer with his soulful grey eyes—their words—and the ass that saved the junior year yearbook. Their words. Again. 

“Paola told me he’s terrified of your mother,” Vickie said. “That’s why he hasn’t asked you out.”

 “Is that supposed to be a good thing?” Alex said, feeling perversely grateful for Eliza.  _You have your freedom now_ , she told herself.  _You ought to feel excited about this._ But somehow, she only felt apprehension minus the butterflies people talked about. She could acknowledge that Tramer was as good looking as they said. She understood the aesthetics of symmetry and proportion, acknowledged that smooth skin and the even smile, but even that felt more aesthetic like she was admiring a sculpture in the gallery. 

“C’mon,” Vickie said, bumping her shoulder gently into Alex, and Alex leaned into her. Just a little. “Rick is going to be there, too.”

“Okay,” Alex said. “I’ll try not to scare him away.”

 #

She didn’t. Not really. Tramer was affable and far better company than Rick, who sulked and seemed to take an abusive enjoyment out of Vickie’s insecurities. Alex hated Vickie’s crushes because they always made her change. That was what she told herself. Whenever Vickie got anywhere near a boy she liked, the sardonic humor disappeared and her intelligence plummeted faster than the puck on the old strongman game near the pier.

 “Where’s your sister, Danvers?” Rick said. “She still running into burning cars?”

He was still on that. Still trying to gain some leverage from an incident that happened more than four years ago. 

Ignore him, she thought but noted with unease that Rick seemed to be observing her reaction more carefully as if he had another plan beyond his usual sadistic prodding. Tramer, oblivious to Rick’s needling, asked. “Is your sister out of town?”

“She’s in Costa Rica,” Alex said, her voice flat.  “Volunteering.”

“The Danvers family,” Rick said. “Always such do-gooders.”

Alex shot him a look. “So what if we are?”

“Rick,” Vickie said, touching his arm. Rick just shrugged, shoving away Vickie’s hand in the process. 

Alex felt her hand ball into a fist.  _I could clock him_ , she thought.  _I’ve had the training_. But she felt fingers wrap around her wrist. It was Tramer. He was behind her now, was gently tugging at her, trying to calm her down. He slipped his hand over hers, and Alex was angry at herself now. For letting Rick rile her up and for giving Tramer a pretext to make that clumsy first move. 

Vickie hadn’t noticed the tension between the three of them. She was looking down at Tramer and Alex's hands, a knowing smile on her face.

“Nothing,” Rick said, backing down. He turned toward the promenade. “I thought we were going to the aquarium.”

With some effort, Alex loosened her fist and let Tramer hold her hand. She pulled him in the opposite direction. “Let’s go to The House of Mad.” 

God. She felt stupid now. Stupid and guilty for using Tramer as a prop to get away from Rick. Why couldn’t it just be her and Vickie? Why couldn't she just leave?

Tramer smiled at her. “Good idea,” he said and nodded to Rick. "You coming, bro?"

Vickie smiled and pulled Rick in the opposite direction. "Nah, I think we'll stick with the pretty fish in their pretty tanks."

Vickie locked eyes with Alex and regarded her slyly. _She thinks I want to make out with him_ , Alex thought. _Crap._

She didn’t know why the thought should fill her with such distress, but it did. She felt like she was already at The House of Mad, latched down by a safety bar, on a track now wheeling her through the horror show motions of adolescent courtship. 

"No, I mean, we can go to the aquarium," Alex said.

Tramer opened his mouth in protest, but Alex felt her phone buzz in her pocket and leaped at the excuse. She let go of Tramer's hand and stepped away.

It was Hank.

 “Alex, I’m terribly sorry to bother you on your day off. Mona’s a bit under the weather, would it be possible to—”

“I’ll be right there,” Alex said. She turned to Tramer. “I’ve gotta go. It’s work.”

"Oh," Tramer said, looking like someone had stuck a pin in his stomach.

“Alex here’s a working girl,” Vickie said.

“Oh, that’s cool,” said Tramer. “Where do you work?”

“The Orpheum,” Alex said, hearing a tiny bit of pride in her voice. 

“That place?” Rick said, “all they show is old crap and stuff with subtitles.”

Tramer gave Rick a good-natured shove, the hand holding having given him a boost of encouragement. “What’s the matter, Rick? Reading too hard?” He looked back at Alex, a little more determined. “So, what are they showing?”

“Oh,” Alex said. _Oh shit._   “It's just an old black and white movie. You probably wouldn’t like it.”

But the attempt to dampen his interest backfired. Tramer, thinking he was standing up for her against Rick, smiled and said, “Well, I for one love old movies. Like _Back to the Future_. I mean, that's a great one. Maybe I can drop by tonight? For a show?”

Alex tried not to notice the grin on Vickie’s face.

“Well, I'll be working. I don’t know if I’ll have time to--”

“It’s okay,” Tramer said. “No pressure. It’ll be fun.”

"Sure," Alex said, forcing a smile. 

#

“I have an idea,” Alex said to Winn. “For tonight’s  _Feral_  screening.”

She reached into her bag and pulled out a package of Cadbury eggs. “My Mom kind of goes overboard on Easter,” she said, “My sister eats, as in eats way too much, and well, she always buys extra.”

“Chocolate eggs?” Winn said. “I’m not following.”

“For the potheads,” Alex said. “Wouldn’t it be funny to see them crawling through the aisles trying to find them? And then, you can run in with the werewolf mask and catch them off guard.”

Winn frowned, but he was nodding already. “Let me think about that one,” he said. 

Hank ducked his head out from the door to the box office. He held it open with his foot as he knotted a silk tie over an even more elegant shirt collar. Winn had told her Hank attended a lot of cultural functions in town and in nearby National City. It was part of how he raised money for his projects.

“Thanks for coming in, Alex. Do you think you can do me a favor?”

“Of course,” she said. 

“Go get Sawyer for me. She’s down in the reel room.”

Alex dropped the eggs back into her bag and swallowed leadenly. So Maggie wasn’t lording it up in her roost but huddled down in the basement this time. She slung her bag over her shoulder and hurried down the narrow stairwell. The place was a labyrinth, full of well-secured storage rooms and passageways. During its vaudeville days, there’d been dressing rooms and costume storage. The reel room, however, was special. It was where Hank did his restoration work and it was rumored to be stashed with treasures. He rarely let anyone in. The place was locked up tighter than Fort Knox. But Hank trusted Maggie enough with the keys, not to mention that whole letting her sleep in the theater thing.

She hesitated in front of the door for a moment, her hand raised in a fist as she whispered. “Hank needs you.” 

_Needs?_  That sounded stupid.  _Wants to see you._ But that sounded needy.

She took a deep breath and forced herself to knock. After a few agonizing moments in which she had half turned away to flee, she heard the door creak and looked back to see Maggie. She was leaning forward, her elbow pressed against the heavy door. In her other hand, she held what looked like the world’s tiniest screwdriver. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, a dark strand dangling over one eye. She blew the strand from her face and said, “what is it?” and Alex lost those carefully rehearsed words. 

“I need...no...I mean Hank needs...wants.”

Maggie nodded slowly as if trying to coax out the rest. “Hank wants to see me. I know.”

“Yes,” Alex said.

“What do  _you_  want?”

“Me?” Alex sputtered. “I came because Hank--”

“Come here for a minute,” Maggie said. She nodded for Alex to enter and she gaped at the size of the room as she stumbled in behind her. It was like being inside a steampunk version of the Tardis. She gazed at the high ceilings and cherry wood paneling; the walls were lined with reel upon reel of film, their metal containers shining like the carapace of some enormous insect. Vintage posters, elegantly framed took up every other inch of available space on the walls. Alex recognized a few— _The Third Man_ (which she hadn’t seen),  _Casablanca_ (which she had), and something with Rita Hayworth called  _Gilda_. She gaped at Hayworth’s dancing figure, one gloveless arm stretched upward, her hair a beautiful mess, and whispered.

"Wow.”

“Welcome to the chamber of secrets,” Maggie said.

"Yeah," Alex said, and felt herself shiver. The temperature in the room was controlled, cooler perhaps than the wine cellar at Vickie's parents where she and Vickie had snuck a bottle of merlot, but despite the chill, Maggie was dressed down, wearing a white tank top and jeans streaked with machine oil. Alex watched her as she stepped over to a canvass blanket, upon which stood an antique film projector. Also, on the blanket was a tool box, and next to it, small parts, polished and laid out neatly side by side. Maggie picked up a flashlight and handed it to her.

“I’m glad you came. Can you hold this for me?”

“Sure,” Alex said. 

Maggie dropped to her knees and squinted up at her.

“You’re going to have to come a little closer.”

“Sorry.” Alex switched on the light and stepped around the projector until she was standing over Maggie. She trained the beam on the gears but felt her eyes drawn back down to the other girl's shoulders. Maggie's ponytail was swept over to one side, and she felt her lips part as she took in the sun-neglected patch of skin at the nape of her neck. 

Maggie spoke as if noting the sudden silence. “J’onn wants me to fix this by next week.”

“J’onn?” Alex said. Her eyes flicked guiltily back up to the machine. The thing was round and bulky, with a swirling font on the label that reminded her of florid title sequences in old movies. 

Maggie paused. “Hank, I mean. Sorry. Going a bit stir crazy in here.”

“This looks old,” Alex said. 

 “It is,” Maggie said. “1931 to be exact. A Pathe. Hank’s got a print of  _Trouble in Paradise_  he’s hoping to screen for the NC Film Society next week and so here we are.”

“Why screen it on this?” _Was that a stupid question? That was a stupid question._

“Authenticity.” There was a tinge of the sardonic in her voice. She scooted closer to the machine, squinting at the gears before lifting the small tool and delicately prying out a fleck of metal that had jammed itself in a groove. “There you are, you little bastard,” she whispered.

“Authenticity?” Alex said. 

Maggie inspected the bit of metal and then flicked it aside. She took a small rag from the toolbox and dabbed it in alcohol before gingerly rubbing it over the spot where the fragment had gotten caught. “A lot of rich people in attendance and they like that kind of thing. Same reason they eat Komodo dragon meat. They’d eat that damned werewolf egg if it gave them bragging rights. Plus, Hank’s a purist. I suppose I am, too when it comes down to it.”

Alex was surprised that Maggie was being so talkative. She wondered if it was the work that brought it out of her. If concentrating on one problem relaxed her enough to loosen up.

“How did you get so good at this?”

“Hank taught me. A lot,” Maggie said. She shoved the rag into her pocket and pushed herself up, then wiped her hands on her jeans. She smelled, Alex noted, pleasantly of sweat and coconut oil.

Maggie tilted her head, her expression mildly confused.  “You can lower the light, Danvers.”

“Oh, right, ” Alex said. She switched off the light and bent to place it on the blanket.

_She knows my last name._

“Well, you look like you've got..." What was it Winn had said? "A knack."

Maggie walked over to pluck a green button-down from the coat rack near the door. “I like fixing things,” she said, slipping her arms into the sleeves and flipping up the collar. “You take a piece of the past, something broken that’s been waiting a long time to be heard and let it speak again.”

Alex nodded. “Yeah.” That was how she felt a lot of the time. Like she’d been waiting for someone, _anyone_ , just to listen to her. 

Maggie tugged the shirt down, glancing up to smile at her, so suddenly and so brightly Alex wondered if the flashlight had been switched on and turned right into her eyes. 

“Is this..." she said, "what you want to do? In the future?”

Maggie chuckled and shook her head. “No, not in the long run.

Alex was going to ask, but Maggie was already heading towards the door. As she stepped forward something glimmered and dropped to the floor behind her. Maggie turned and she and Alex both stared at it for a moment. It was a jeweled necklace. And not just some cheap imitation thing that turned your neck green. It looked real as if it had been snatched from a museum tour.

“Well," Alex said, "that certainly doesn’t go with your outfit,” and immediately felt stung as Maggie frowned and bent to retrieve it. She rolled it deftly around her finger and stuffed it into the pocket of her shirt.

“Friend works for the local theater company,” she said, her voice tight. “Asked me to fix the clasp.”

"Oh," Alex said and felt that same rush of bereftness and confusion. Was she upset about the necklace? Or the friend? And was that friend, she wondered, a blonde?

Maggie, her face now a mask, pushed the door open.

“Thanks for the assist, Danvers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As for Bette Davis—definitely the latter. Ensured that the Hollywood Canteen was an inclusive space and had a rep for giving hell to lousy screenwriters. Sam Sykes, who got a look at Davis’s personal script for “All about Eve” said the only marks she added there were on blocking.


	4. Phantom Menace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the late update! Some angst and fluff to come.

 

 

“And a large Diet Coke!”

Alex blinked at the order in front of her, the tank-sized popcorn glistening with butter, the jumbo box of Junior Mints lying next to it like an Elseworlds version of Tums.

The customer glared.  “No, hon. I _don’t_ think it’ll erase the calories,” she said. “Some of us just like the taste.”

 “I wasn’t…” Alex said, trying to clasp the lid over the enormous cup. She clamped her mouth shut in concert, then turned to face the next horde of customers staring dumbly up at the menu. Mona’s absence meant she’d been pushed right into concession duty, and it had turned out to be more trying than last summer’s survival camp. Despite her intellect, Alex was terrible at remembering orders, a disaster at counting out change, and found reattaching the syrup to the carbonation valve akin to defusing a bomb.

She wanted to flee, or at least sneak a pint of the theater’s Plan 9 porter. She wondered if Maggie liked beer.

She looked up from filling a soft drink and assessed the length of the line. It was shorter now, but there was another problem. Tramer was at the end of it with a couple of guy friends--not Rick, thankfully. He lifted his hand to wave and Alex whipped around to the popcorn bin, pretending not to see him.

 _Don’t be an ass,_ she told herself. _He’s genuinely nice. And other girls would kill for this._

She didn’t think Maggie would. When Winn referenced blondes, she doubted it meant guys like Rick. Or guys, at all.

 _I am…cool with that,_ she told herself. _If that’s the case. I mean…_

Alex had gay friends at school like Robbie Beltran and Gio Cinzanni. She didn’t know any girls though, other than maybe Anastasia Melcher, who was bi, but also dour and goth and one of those kids who stank up the supply closet with cloves.

She tried to imagine herself kissing Anastasia, but the image glitched out before she could grasp it. It was strange. With Kara around, she'd learned to stretch her imagination, could visualize anything, but it was a block had been installed in her brain. 

She opened the bin to scoop from the pile of hardened kernels, remembering Kara’s terror the first time she’d turned on the air popper. She’d hurled herself under the table, squeezing her eyes shut and covering her ears.

“It’s like Krythallian shard rock,” she’d said, and Alex suppressed a laugh and bent down to see she was crying. That was the first time she’d held her, wrapping her arms around Kara’s slim hungry body as the bowl beneath the popper overflowed. Kara described the Krythalli pass that night, how its sentient stones spat shards of radioactive crystals at intruders. She remembered marveling at the story, but even more so at the thought that Kara had seen it on a ‘nature holo.’ It was fascinating how similar their forms of entertainment really were, how storytelling and the imparting of knowledge took on the same configurations. Did Krypton have its own version of classic cinema? Had there been people like Hank who’d struggled to preserve it while younger Kryptonians were happy with their holos of babootch pups and Kvornish tiger cubs?

She shook the popcorn and scooped on a fresh layer before passing it to a customer with a few dollars change. Tramer was three people down now, and Alex bit her lip, preparing an expression of mild surprise. She was rescued by a scream coming from the auditorium.

“Fight on the balcony!” said a man hurrying out. She opened her mouth to question him, but the crackle of gunfire drowned her out. 

_Fuck._

Heart rabbiting, she ducked under the counter just as Hank bolted from the box office. 

“Really hope this is one of Winn’s contraptions,” he said, but his expression didn't hold out much hope. Winn’s pranks never went that far, and besides, the movie hadn’t even started yet.

Alex and Hank fought their way through the crowd of exiting patrons and into the dark auditorium. The house lights weren’t up. Was Maggie on a break? she wondered. Or off to that same place she seemed to have disappeared on her first night there?

Another gunshot. She and Hank looked in the direction of the sound to see two silhouettes wrestling near the edge of the balcony. A man in a hat was leaning over another--that man was clinging to the railing for dear life.

“He’s going to push him," Hank said, hurrying back out into the lobby. 

A few people in the audience stopped to stare, but Alex yanked them both by the shoulders, directing them away from the lobby entrances, and toward the exits at each side of the screen.  “This way!" she barked. "Go! Now!”

She was bending to help an elderly woman from her seat when the house lights went up. She reeled at the intrusion, stepped back to see Hank at the edge of the balcony. He stood there, dumb, his arms outstretched as if he'd been flailing at a phantom. It may as well have been for the assailant and his target were gone.

“Dude.”

"What's that?" Alex said. She turned back to see a grizzled young man in an army surplus jacket. He grinned at her as if she'd just hopped out of a cake. 

"That looked real, man. You guys outdid yourself with that one."

#

An hour later, Hank called a meeting in his office. Winn and Alex sat as rigidly as one could on a plush leather sofa that threatened to swallow them up. Alex wanted it to. She was exhausted, the sharp turn her weekend had taken bordered on the surreal. Maggie sat on the floor, her knees bunched up, her expression calm but alert. 

Hank entered and Winn tried to stand again, his hands shaking as he pushed himself up. 

“First off, I want you to know that it wasn’t—” 

“You,” Hank said, taking a seat in the director's chair behind his desk. “I know that, Winn. You’ve nothing to worry about.”

Winn sank back into the sofa. “I appreciate that, but I was talking about my father. This isn't his M.O. Plus, last I checked, still incarcerated."

Alex's eyes went wide in surprise and she ducked her head into her hand. She knew he did tech work for the government. The father in prison was another thing. 

Hank nodded, his expression gentle. “It hadn't even crossed my mind. But we’re clear that it was an optical illusion of some sort. Not a real shooter.”

Maggie exhaled and pushed herself up from the floor. “Wouldn’t be too sure of that.” She reached into her back pocket and pulled out something shiny. “I found this buried in one of the rafter beams. Still warm.”

A bullet.

“Real,” she said as if answering everyone’s questions. “And old. Likely from a Colt. I’d say the mid-1930s." 

“Where do you get this stuff, Sawyer? "Winn lifted his hand and dropped it. “That’s right. You're a wanna be cop.”

Maggie shot him a glare and Alex leaned back, her mouth open, hands folding in front of her. Maggie had been vague about her future, but Alex certainly hadn't expected that. And what exactly was happening here? She'd wanted a normal high school job; okay, maybe something a little different, something she could learn from, but this was going smack into Kara territory. And even stranger, everyone in the room seemed to be acclimatized to it, as if bullets and phantoms were just a normal part of their routine.

 Winn softened his tone. “So the people were some kind of projection, but the bullets were real." 

Hank was silent, his confidence in the Orpheum's safety once again deflated. “Good work, Sawyer,” he said. Then he turned to the rest of them. “We’ll close up early tonight. Cancel that _Feral_ screening.” He turned to Alex. “And thank you, Alex. You handled yourself magnificently out there.”

Alex caught Maggie’s eyes on her and blushed, stuffed down the feeling of warmth rising in her. 

“It was no problem,” Alex said.

On the way out, Maggie followed after her. “Hank was right. Great job on the floor tonight, Danvers.”

Alex paused, didn’t look back until she’d pushed down another smile. “Wouldn’t have known it for the bats the other day.”

Maggie chuckled softly. “Yeah, well, I’d be afraid of those too.”

Alex took a breath and turned. Maggie’s face was open and gentle while her own smarted from fluster and indecision. “So….you’re going into law enforcement?”

“Didn’t know you were curious.”

“No, I just…” _Fuck._ She paused, gestured to the posters in the lobby. “I mean when you told me this wasn’t what you had in mind, I wondered.”

Maggie tilted her head. “You okay, Danvers?" 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good. I'm good, I...” What came next surprised her as if someone else had taken up space in her brain. “Are you doing anything? After this?"

Maggie dropped her eyes and reared back as if stymied. “Actually, I've got plans at the moment. But uh, maybe another time?”

That last part sounded less like a promise than a means to deflate the tension. Alex could feel the fragile intimacy between them growing thinner, whistling into nothing. 

Maggie's posture was stiff now, her eyes distant. But there was something else in her expression that hinted of a faint disappointment. “You should probably get some rest after that," she said.

 “Yeah," Alex said. "You, too."

Maggie gave a quick, jerky wave and turned up the rampway to the second floor. That's when Alex saw her--a blonde wearing torn jeans and an undersized NCU T. She was leaning against a painted column at the top of the ramp, her arms folded, her expression pouty. Painted snakes trailed up behind her, accessories to the wrath she was about to unleash. As Maggie approached, she started gesticulating, her lips moving rapidly. Maggie didn't speak. She didn't try to defend herself. She just leaned in and pinned the girl gently against the column, silencing her with a kiss. Alex's mouth went dry. She knew she shouldn't be staring like this, but felt frozen in place, watching as Maggie pulled away and took the girl's hand. Then she led her away toward the projection booth. 

Alex whipped around toward the entrance, her stomach a knot, the heat still rising in her face. She'd been the one watching, intruding on Maggie's privacy, but it was she who felt exposed. She slipped off the tie and shoved it into her bag, checked for her keys. Her hand slipped around the Beebo keyring and she squeezed it for dear life. 

Tramer was waiting for her at the entrance next to the box office.

“I wanted to make sure you’re okay," he said. "Things got a little crazy."

He'd waited. That was sweet. She supposed.

“I’m fine,” Alex said, not looking at him. “Thanks.”

He took a step toward her. “Do you maybe want to--”

“Sure,” Alex said, feeling the air rush out of her with the word. She forced a smile, saw her own lack of enthusiasm reflected in Tramer’s befuddled delight as he held open the door. 

"Let's get out of this place," she said. 


	5. Smoke and Bubblegum

_When a philosopher admits to a “hypnotic fascination” with cinema, is it just chance that his thought leads him to encounter the ghosts haunting dark theaters?—_

_Cahiers du cinéma_

 Alex opened her eyes and groaned. She’d stumbled in late and forgotten to draw the curtains. The sunlight had sharpened everything. The walls, the dresser, even the soft curves of the beanbag chair and the pile of clothes she’d left on the floor. Her throat was raw from exhaustion and the smoke from last night’s bonfire, and she reached for the pint glass of stagnant water on her nightstand. It tasted like smoke and bubblegum.

Last night was stupid.

Stupid didn’t even begin to cover it.

Tramer had taken her to a beach party where he and his Lacrosse buddies drank warm Pabst and tossed Chocos into the fire, and where the conversation had veered between the day’s practice and opening a can of whoop ass on the National City Toros. The boys were sponsor proud, wearing their corporate logos like the crest of the House of El, not that they had any respect for the latter.

There were, predictably, the usual bigoted exchanges about aliens and metahumans. About how if they allowed them to play on their teams, they’d steal all the awards from the human athletes. Alex wanted to ask them about all the humans appropriating the alien game of Themarkhai from the Valtresi, but the Valtresi’s existence was still a government secret—the very thing that allowed some tech “entrepreneur” to repackage and market their pastime.

One of the kids, Anders Ethier boasted that his parents had bought a house in Wescott’s Estates, an anti-alien gated community going up along the coast. Wescott boasted of tennis courts, pools, and private beaches, not to mention a “wall higher than the one around Disneyland.”

“Alien,” Alex had said, and Ethier had turned and squinted at her as if she’d pointed out a stain on his shirt.

“What?”

“The wall. You do know it’s made of Nth metal,” she said, “you’re keeping out aliens with an alien alloy. Not exactly acing that purity test, are you?”

The boy looked around for support, his mouth twisted and slack. “So?”

Alex had shrugged and taken another swig of beer. Why torture the dolt? she thought. But Lori Griswold came to Ethier’s defense.

“Alex here has all sorts of interesting factoids at her disposal. I’m sure she’s a real charmer at cocktail parties.”

Alex turned, her lips curling in a smirk. “Factoids?”

Lori Griswold pursed her lips and Alex drew back. She was tired, her mind muddled from the day’s excitement, and this was just how things worked with the girls enmeshed in social circles like Ethier’s. Eliza had told her about how social dominance theory, how inequality was maintained with socially designated members policing those within their own subordinate groups. It was predictable and dull, and like the dumbest most watered-down Highlander sequel—there could be only one.

 She might have thrown another barb at Lori, but she was tired and waylaid by her own confusion. So when she felt Tramer’s hand on her shoulder, and when he’d asked her to take a walk, she’d gone and let him kiss her in the hollow of a sea cliff. And It hadn’t been bad really.

It hadn’t been anything.

She looked at the clock, felt a pang of regret as the digital readout dragged her into late afternoon.

But Eliza, likely after several failed attempts to wake her, had left to run her usual Sunday errands. There was still time.

She sat up and pulled off the covers, damp with sweat. She could get in a half hour on Eliza’s computer if she hurried. Slipping on a pair of shorts, she crept down the stairs. Hank had seemed so worried last night about security in the theater, and maybe she could find something in that government database they had access to--a treasure trove of things that went bump in the night-- that could help. She'd cracked Eliza’s passwords easily, all Kryptonian phrases in the Kryptonian script, but rather than using that, Jeremiah had been clever, opting for a mix of Roman numerals, Japanese punctuation marks, and Sanskrit. 

She crept into soft clutter of the study. The computer had been left on, and her mother’s favorite plushy doll of a green Martian was propped atop the monitor. Alex was certain that it harbored some kind of government nanny cam.

“Sorry, little dude. No peeking.” She turned it away from her and slumped down into the chair, her forearm sticking to one of the brochures for Kara’s “volunteer” program, all sunny photos of youths lounging in hammocks and hugging animals in an “eco-habitat”---whatever that meant. She didn’t know why her parents had to lie to her about this one. There were levels of clearance. She got that, but it was absurd. She picked it up and smirked, imagining the photos on the real brochure if there’d been one. Young women hurling Hephaestus-forged javelins across glittering beaches, wandering hand in hand through the crystal caves of Illusia, and wrestling with the well-oiled, muscular bodies of …she stopped herself on that one. Swallowed.

_Focus, Danvers._

She started with specifics, cinematic apparitions, theater ghosts, Zoetrope djinn, and found nothing. It wasn’t until she’d typed in the words alien cinema that something promising came up. It was a research article on the Lascaux caves, the world’s most ancient form of cinema. The article speculated that if the caves didn’t have an alien origin, then might there at least be an alien inspiration? Her eyes ran across the quote from a French philosopher whose name sounded just about perfect for a cat.

 “Cinema is the art of phantoms. Technological developments have not diminished the realm of ghosts, but have enhanced their power to return. Does it not make sense then that the technology from other worlds might enhance that power even more?”

Alex pressed 'print' just as she heard the low rumble of Eliza’s jeep pulling into the driveway.

_Idiot!  
_

She watched as the printer spat out the first page, pulled it out and peered at the top corner. _1 out of 30_ , it read.

“Shit, shit, shit!”

She logged out of the database and got up from the chair, alternately bouncing on her heels and listening for the sound of Eliza coming up the front steps as the printer spat out each page with a maddening lack of urgency. The last page dropped just as she heard the car door slam.

She gathered them up and raced out of the study, then remembered the Martian and raced back.

“Don’t tell,” she said as she turned him around.

Eliza met her minutes later in the kitchen. Alex sat in a pose of relaxed indifference. She was nursing a cup of lukewarm coffee.

“Just woke up?” Eliza said. She didn’t say more, which was both good and bad. There would be no browbeating over the theater job, but it was likely because she wanted something.

 “I was at the beach last night." She didn't mention going into the theater that night. It felt odd, but she felt more secretive about that part than making out with a boy.

“With Vickie?”

There was something odd to her mother’s tone.

"No...a bonfire. Some kids on the Lacrosse team. Really wish I hadn’t.”

She felt relief in that admission, partially because she’d just logged into her parents’ top secret database, and telling some kind of truth alleviated that guilt. But it also felt good to admit it to herself.

“Those kinds of things rarely are,” Eliza said. She pulled a mug from the cupboard and poured herself a cup from the pot. Took a sip and flinched. “This isn’t fresh.”

“I didn’t want to waste it.” Alex paused and folded her hands together. “I’m sort of seeing someone.”

“A boy?” Eliza said, and the surprise in her voice set Alex’s cheeks to burning.

“Um, yeah.” She glared at her mother. What was that supposed to mean?

Eliza dumped the coffee into the sink and turned on the faucet.  "You were being vague, Sweetie. Clarity is important.”

Alex snorted. “You like saying that.”

“I do,” Eliza said. She took a seat across the counter from her and pulled an orange from a bowl of fruit at its center. “And…how is he?”

Alex felt her defensiveness fade, sag into a mild despondence. “The other girls like him.”

Eliza nodded. “The other girls like him.” She didn’t ask ‘what about you?’ Just let Alex’s own words ricochet back at her.

“Yeah,” Alex said, “I mean, he’s…hot.”

“That last word is usually pronounced more emphatically, Alexandra.” Eliza dropped her eyes and began peeling the fruit. She was good at this, muffling the curiosity in her voice, teasing out whatever issues had tangled themselves in Alex's head.

“And he’s really...nice,” Alex said.

Eliza nodded. “Sounds like a good combination.”

“But…”

“But…”

“I don't know. It’s just…I’ve been waiting to do things like this, you know? Date. Get a job. Hang out with kids my age, and finally, it’s happening and other than the job part, I just…it’s so anticlimactic.”

Eliza placed the peels in a small pile on the counter. She tore the orange apart and handed her a half.  “Remember that trip to Disneyland?”

“Of course,” Alex said. She took a wedge and popped it into her mouth. It was overripe and sweet. “The nightmare, you mean.”

“But you were so excited to go. Couldn’t wait.”

“Was I? All I remember is hating it. The idea that people there went through the same motions every day with those smiles plastered on their faces. That music.”

“Once we got there,” Eliza said. “You were ready to go home within an hour. Your father and I were so happy. Relieved for us and for you. A lot of this high school stuff is like Disneyland. There’s a security in mimicry, in sameness, not bad, but not exactly fulfilling either. Most people never figure that out.” She placed a hand on Alex’s arm. “Be happy that you know when something isn’t for you.”

Alex smiled and felt her heart ease until she remembered Maggie, the image of her kissing that girl by the pillar. Then another question came to her--how did you know when it _was_?

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massively took a quote from Derrida out of context. He's so much more fun when you take everything he says literally. Boo!


	6. Trouble in Paradise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Longish update. Thanks for reading.

Alex’s next shift at the Orpheum was the following Tuesday, but for the most part, she stayed in, lost in thought about her conversation with Eliza. Tramer had called her several times, asking if she was okay, or if she wanted to meet up. Alex begged off with vague promises, although she had gone on an ice cream run to Sidewinder’s with Vickie, who talked in the same predictable circles. The conversation went something like this: Rick Malverne was a jerk. Vickie did everything she could to help him be a better human--or even just a human. Then, after a brief period of respite, Rick would turn around and act like an even bigger jerk.

“And he’s obsessed with the aquarium,” Vickie said. “That creepy section with the deep sea creatures.”

Alex wanted to say that with his translucent skin and small eyes, Rick resembled nothing short of a vampire squid, but she bit her tongue and thought about Einstein’s well-worn definition of insanity instead. She was about to relay it to Vickie, to risk the roll of her friend’s eyes, that playful, yet condescending tone whenever she said, ‘you may know everything about bioluminescence and betaoxiwhatchamacallit, Alex, but what about _life_?’

That was when Vickie reached across the table and grabbed her wrist.

“I’ve been boring you with my stuff and you haven’t even told me about Ben,” she said. It was innocent, really. Vickie was looking at Alex with genuine concern, and she let her thumb slide gently beneath the soft leather band of Alex’s bracelet. She shifted in her seat, felt her face go hot enough to melt the shake in front of her. Vickie caught it, leaned back and laughed.

“Girl, you’ve got it bad.”

“What?” Alex said, her voice tight, but when she looked up, she saw that Vickie didn’t have a clue. A mix of relief and confusion rolled through her.

 _She thinks this is about Tramer_.

“Lex,” Vickie said. She bent her head, her eyes searching Alex’s. “Spill.”

Vickie squeezed Alex’s wrist again and Alex’s eyes shot down to her half-finished malt. That _touch_ , that feeling of Vickie’s skin against her own. She was responding to it in a way she never had to Tramer, to any boy.

She pulled her hand away, raising it to her lips as she fake coughed. She reached for the water glass to her side and downed it, which brought on a spate of the real thing. Water sprayed from her mouth, spattering Vickie’s shirt, the table in front of them, but Vickie just laughed again and said, “See?”

After a minute, Alex regained her composure and wiped her mouth with a napkin she’d been crumpling under the table. “Sorry,” she said.

Vickie leaned back and regarded her with amusement. “You sure don’t look it.”  
Alex managed a smile, but she wasn’t thinking about Tramer anymore, or Vickie really. She was remembering how it had felt when Maggie had reached her arms around her, how her hands had brushed her wrists, her fingers, her waist.

She'd gone home and pushed it all down. Again. There were more important things to think about, like who or what had created the apparitions in the theater, and whether or not they were of alien origin. The article from her parents’ database compared specific angles and line lengths on the cave walls with those discovered by the Anarchy II, a privately-funded Mars probe sent up Lord Technologies. The CEO’s inventions, it was suspected, came less from ingenuity than rogue alien scavengers who’d visited the planet’s surface on their way to earth. It was easy, Jeremiah had told her, to copyright an idea if its inventors had been wiped out for millennia. She remembered what Winn told her about Louis Le Prince, the inventor of the first cinema technology. Just after his breakthrough, Le Prince had conveniently disappeared on a train to Paris. “Edison was behind it,” Winn said. “My father knew an old guy who knew an even older guy who knew the guy who’d been hired to do it. That stuff’s been going on for a long time.”

Cave paintings weren’t exactly high tech, but the author had done exact measurements of the lines and the angles of the walls, arguing with some complicated math that the ways in which the light particles hit the retinas affected the visual and somatic sensory cortex, creating a hallucinatory state similar to those caused by Martian psychic abilities. In addition, dosimeter readings at the caves revealed a heavy signature of Echletian trace particles.

Alex leaned back against the bedpost, her memory a frustrating blur. She’d heard that term before. Her parents had talked about it. Had argued about it. Something about Jeremiah’s use of LexCorp technology. Eliza had been furious.

“How could you?” she had said. Alex never caught exactly what her father had done, but her mother posed that question more than once. Likely, it had been the association with LexCorp and wasn’t related to the trace energy itself. Because Alex had an idea now about how to help Hank. A good one.

#

The film that night was _The Scarlet Empress_ , a beautiful and baroque freak show starring Marlene Dietrich as Catherine the Great. Hank had borrowed the print from a friend at the National City Cinema Institute, and the theater was adorned with electric candles and faux furs, giving the lobby the appearance of a haunted yurt.

“I should count my blessings,” Winn said. “Hank could have done another revival of _Ivan the Terrible_.”

The crowd, however, had clearly not been scared off by Saturday’s incident. They’d taken to the ghostly rumors as all the more reason to show up, and thus Alex’s promised quiet night of wandering the aisles looking for stray buckets of popcorn became a hamster wheel of ushering and concession duty.

Mona was back but seemed even dizzier than usual, blissed out and more likely to drip butter into a soda cup than be of any use to anyone. It wasn’t until the first screening was over that Alex could escape and take a stroll around the lobby.

She was just being friendly, she told herself. Maggie interested her as a friend.

She walked down the narrow corridor, its shadows pushed back by the art deco lighting and kept an eye out for phantoms. She saw the reel room door was ajar and smiled. No awkwardness in just dipping her head in, saying she was out for some air and did Maggie maybe have a free minute? She was a few feet away when she heard voices.

Hank’s. And Maggie’s.

“I think I might know where they came from,” Maggie said. “The make of the bullet. You said one of them looked like Conrad Veidt.”

There was a protracted silence and then Hank said, almost as if it was just dawning on him. “He’s in _I Know Your Name._ That’s one of our restorations.”

“Yep.”

“By the Crone of Tharsis, I hadn’t even thought about that.”

“Want me to put the project on hold?”

“No,” Hank said.

There was another silence, and then Alex heard Maggie’s footsteps scuff against the carpet. She was pacing. “Listen J’onn, is there something you’re not telling me here?”

 _J’onn._ So that hadn’t been a slip.

“Of course not,” Hank said. “Give me some time. I’ll call a meeting tonight. Try to parse what people know.”

#

Alex didn’t sit this time. Instead, she stood, her arms folded partially to keep herself composed. She was nervous about springing her idea, but also giddy and impatient.

Maggie sat next to Mona on the oversized sofa, looking like she was about to sink in and be lost forever. She offered Alex a smile, her expression warm as if she had looked forward to seeing her.

“No sightings,” Winn said, “I’ve also done a thorough check on the equipment, the controls in the orchestra pit. Nothing weird. No signs of tampering.”

“And no signs of ghosts?” Hank said, a hint of humor in his voice. He glanced around the room, “no wrestling apparitions?” He turned to Maggie. “Anything out of order?”

Maggie shrugged and said a soft “no” but there was hesitation in her voice. Alex sensed a tension between them, and clearly, Hank’s previous reassurances had had little of their intended effect. Now was probably a good time. Slowly, Alex lifted her hand and spoke. “I have a suggestion.”

The group turned to her in surprise. Even Mona, who’d been listlessly staring at a poster of Robert Mitchum, seemed to sharpen as if Alex had changed the station during a favorite song.

 “I did some reading over the weekend. You see, my mother is a biochemist and an astrobiologist.”

Alex thought she saw Hank flinch at that last word, but she continued. “Have you considered aliens?”

Hank shot Maggie a strange look, either of surprise or distress. He cleared his throat,  gestured as if tossing Alex a softball. “I think our area of concern is tech, Alex. You’d be surprised at how many rivals we have in this business. I’d point at Larry Brexler of the Bijoux Multiplex chain first before considering E.T.”

“Except Brexler wouldn’t know Conrad Veidt from Vin Diesel,” Maggie said under her breath.

 “Mr. Henshaw,” Winn said, “if you want me to contact my father at Arkham, I can get clearance. Not the droid you’re looking for, but he might be able to help.”

Maggie’s eyes narrowed in appreciation. “Your father’s at Arkham? Damn. I’m sorry, Schott.”

Winn glared at her.

 “It’s just that I was thinking…” Alex said. She held up the end of her necktie, flipping the nametag to reveal a thick plastic packet attached to its underside. “We might approach this from a different angle.”

“What is that?” Mona said. “Tic-Tacs?”

Alex held it up. “It’s a...um, a film badge. They use these in hot zones, like Chernobyl or old nuclear subs.” There was stunned silence, and she continued. “It’s a dosimeter. Has a little strip of undeveloped film inside. The covering keeps the light out, but higher than normal levels of radiation leave traces in the developed film.”

“Is there a reactor under the orchestra pit?” Winn asked, half serious. Alex laughed but stifled it when she saw no one had joined her. “No, it’s…they don’t just use them to test for radiation but for certain alien energy signatures. Works the same way. When we develop the film, instead of the wavy X-Ray interference you might get going through airport security, you’ll see a fractal pattern. The type left by Trommites and Echletians, and a host of other species--basically anything that’s passed through a Bechtlar-Klein gateway.”

She looked around the room, but no one seemed to understand what she was getting at. They were squinting at her; Winn was rubbing his face as if she’d just announced she was from Krypton. _Slow down_ she told herself. It was easy to forget that her parents were scientists, that her sister was an alien. It had made communicating difficult for her in the past. Made her an outcast for so many years at school.

She turned to Maggie, hoping for support, but Maggie’s eyes had dropped to the floor. She looked stricken, embarrassed even. “I thought as there’s a darkroom here that we can develop it and see what turns up. Otherwise, I can use the one at my school, or my mother’s lab, but that will take longer and…”  
 Her voice trailed off. It wasn’t because they didn’t understand. They did. All too well. Maggie was now giving Hank a half-panicked look as if urging him to do something. After a long moment, she sighed and pushed herself up from the sofa. Then, she walked across the room and snatched the film badge from Alex’s hand.

 “Yeah, we’ve got a dark room, Danvers,” she said. Her words were short and clipped. “Let’s go.”

 “Yeah?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Alex felt Maggie’s hand on her arm. Her grip was cold yet firm as she led her out into the corridor.

 “Everything okay?” Alex asked.

Maggie didn’t answer. She just continued to lead her up the ramp to the projection booth. She opened the door and let Alex enter first, and when the steel door thudded shut behind them, she dropped the dosimeter and smashed it with the heel of her boot.

“Maggie?”

She bent over and picked up the broken pieces. Then she tugged out the strip of film and held it up to the light.

“What are you doing?”

 “I think a better question is what were you thinking, Danvers.”

Maggie’s voice was flat, but her expression was one of barely suppressed fury. Alex felt the sting as their eyes met.

“Trying to help,” she said. “Hank seemed worried about security, and my parents, well they know a bit about--”

“So, you decided outing possibly undocumented aliens was a good idea. Why not do one better? How about we just ask everyone for their identity papers at the front door?”

Alex’s mouth dropped as she processed Maggie’s words. She’d been thinking of energy signatures, not people. But it dawned on her with a cold shock just why her mother had been so angry. Using LexCorp technology hadn’t been the problem. But using it to smoke out unregistered aliens was. A big one.

She felt sick suddenly. Dizzy with the realization of how that must have looked to the others. “I’m so sorry, Maggie,” Alex said. Her voice was shaking. “I didn’t mean it like that. My parents work with aliens. Help them.”

Maggie leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, exhaling slowly as if trying to regain control of her temper.

 “I really don’t care what your parents do, Danvers,” Maggie said. Alex felt a knot in her chest. Maggie looked irritated now as if Alex was a gnat she wanted to swat away. The other girl took a deep breath and faced her.

“What I do know is that these people don’t deserve some overzealous kid from the science fair outing them to authorities. For you, it’s a neat trick to put on your college resume, might even get you into Stanford or MIT. For them, it’s a matter of being able to go to school. Any school at all. To hold down a job, stay on the same planet with their families. Did you even consider that?”

Maggie frowned and tossed the broken pieces of the dosimeter into the trash can. “I don’t want to see another one of those things in here, Danvers. Or anything else your parents might have in that lab of theirs.”

Maggie folded arms, signaling that they were done, and Alex felt the tears sting her cheeks and turned away. She stood at the door for a moment, hoping Maggie might say something, offer up a chance for her to explain herself, but she was answered only with silence, with the sound of Maggie’s still unsteady breathing. She pushed open the heavy door and stumbled back out into the lobby.

She worked the rest of her shift like a robot, wondering if the others saw her that way. If she was now deemed a pariah in the one place she felt she fit in. But Mona just greeted her with a slap on the back.

“Don’t worry about Sawyer,” she said. “Takes herself way too seriously.”

Alex forced a smile. “I won’t,” she lied.

“Winn isn’t keen on her either. She ‘stole’ his girl.”

“She what?” Alex turned, unable to fight her curiosity. Was that what he’d meant with the blonde remark? Had that girl on the ramp been his girlfriend?

Mona sighed. “It’s more like he thought she was. Sawyer moved in before he could make one himself. She’s real fast, that one.”

 #

Later, when she was collecting her backpack from her locker, she heard the door open behind her. Maggie was leaning against the door, her head down slightly.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Alex didn’t look up right away. She couldn’t because if she met those eyes, she’d start crying all over again. Try to explain herself and say something irrevocably stupid. 

Instead, it was Maggie who met hers. Her chin was still set, but that dark gaze was soft and earnest. “I’m sorry about that back there. You were just trying to help.”

Instead of relief, Alex felt her chest constrict. It was always so much worse when people were kind. “It’s okay,” she said, hearing her voice break. “I should have thought about things more. I mean, the kids at my school, the things they say.”

“You’re not like them,” Maggie said.

Alex let out a laugh. “God. I hope not.” She wiped a tear away with the collar of her shirt and looked up at Maggie, who offered a hesitant smile.

 She stepped into the room, let the door close behind her.  “I don’t meet many people I like, Danvers and…” She paused and bit her lip, and Alex waited for her to finish that sentence as she listened to her own heart hammering in her chest. But Maggie just shoved her thumbs into her belt loops and looked at the floor again. “I guess I should try to have a little more faith in people.”

“It’s okay,” Alex said. “People kind of suck sometimes.”

Maggie nodded to the backpack. “You in a hurry?”

Alex shook her head. “No. Just finishing up.”

“You hungry?”

Alex hadn’t eaten more than a handful of popcorn. She hadn’t been able to. “Yeah.”

“I’ve got some takeout Thai and the final cut of _Trouble in Paradise_ that I need to test run. Want to join me?”

Alex felt her body go light, felt a small smile break on her face, although it felt like something so much bigger. “Sure.”

“I mean,” Maggie said, scratching her head. “There’s no brain eating or slashers. Or final girls. You okay with that?”

 _She’s rambling,_ Alex thought.

“Sure,” Alex said.

 “Really?”

“Yeah.”

They sat in the dark, parked in front of an editing bench, and watching the film on its tiny screen. Maggie would stop it occasionally to mark a rough spot, but the print was in good condition, and it was funny. The story of two thieves who fall in love before deciding to con a perfume heiress played by Kay Francis. Alex had never heard of her, but Maggie was quick to inform her that Francis liked girls as well as boys.

 “What is that?” Alex teased. “Some kind of one more for the team thing?”

“More on the team than meets the eye, Danvers,” Maggie said, and Alex turned, catching that dimpled smirk in profile. She felt her own creep over her face.

 “Better not tell your girlfriend that. She’ll lock you up.”

Maggie’s smile dropped, but she kept her eyes on the screen.

“Probably not. She dumped me.”

“Dumped you?” Alex said. “Who would do that?”

Maggie stopped the film. “Don’t act so surprised, Danvers. She’s a college senior. Pre-law. I’m a first year at Midvale Community college. She was slumming.”

“Hey,” Alex said, “don’t say that.”

“It’s the truth. I’m transferring anyway. Wouldn’t have worked out.”

“Where to?” Alex asked. This was all happening too fast. She was finally getting to talk to Maggie, to learn things about her, and now she was leaving?

“I’ve applied to a few places,” Maggie said, dishing up some Pad Thai. “NCU, of course. But that’s really my last choice. Gotham, and uh, this one’s a reach, the Criminal Justice program at Metropolis University.”

Alex caught her breath. “Metropolis. Wow. That’s…far.”

“Not far enough,” Maggie said.

“I know someone who lives there. A cousin. Kind of.”

Maggie looked at her. “Yeah?”

Alex nodded. The second reel sat on the edge of the table, waiting for Maggie to load it. She didn’t want her to. She wanted to keep talking.

“Have you always wanted to be a cop?”

Maggie nodded and reached up. She threaded her fingers together and stretched back like a cat. “Since my Dad took me on his first ride around.”  


“So, it’s a family thing.”

“I guess so,” Maggie said. “He’s the sheriff. In Hoppers, a small town about four hours from here.”  
“Must have been a good influence,” Alex said.

Maggie snorted. “If you mean by showing me what _not_ to do? Then yeah.” Her voice was tinged with bitterness. Alex didn’t push it, but she wondered. Was this why she lived in Midvale?

 “Besides...” Maggie nodded up at the poster of Robert Mitchum, gestured over to another one of Humphrey Bogart. “I’ve already learned from the best.”

She gave Alex a playful grin, but there was an odd conviction in her tone. Normally, Alex might have brushed it off as a weird fantasy, might have seen it as something similar to those goth kids who claimed they were vampires and drank one another's blood. But Maggie sounded confident. Sincere. As if she somehow really knew these characters.

“Well, you’ve certainly got their cool,” she said.

Maggie rolled her eyes, gifted Alex with the brightest smile she’d ever seen.

“Flattery, Danvers?”

“No.” She watched as Maggie leaned over and took a bite of her food; a stray noodle stuck to her chin. “You’ve lost your cool points now.”

It was casual, unthinking, but she reached over to pluck the stray bit of food from Maggie’s chin, her heart skipping a beat as Maggie froze at the sudden contact. Their eyes locked, and Alex pulled her hand away, placed the noodle on the edge of her paper plate.

“You had a little something there.”

Maggie’s look of shock relaxed into a smile. “I guess I’d better load the next reel.”

For the next forty minutes, they sat in silence, taking bites of food and sipping Plan 9 porter as they watched the rest of the film. Alex held her pint glass in her hands, taking measured sips as she tried to focus, to pretend it was just a new friend and one hell of an unusual version of Netflix and chill. But as the minutes passed, it became harder to fight the temptation, to keep her eyes from straying from Kay Francis’s dazzling gowns to the striking silhouette next to her.

 _Is this what it’s supposed to feel like?_ she thought, just as Herbert Marshall swept Kay Francis into his arms. _Is this…_

And then Kay Francis drew a strand of jewelry from her safe, and Alex blinked in surprise, wondered if there wasn’t something in the beer. For they were the very same gems she’d seen slip from Maggie’s pocket.

 


	7. Blind Alley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience and for reading.

The screening for  _Trouble in Paradise_  was that Friday, a dress-up affair complete with champagne, canapes, and a lobby packed with some of Midvale and National City’s wealthiest. Caleb Angstrom, one of the backers of Wescott’s Gated Community, was said to be in attendance as were a few distant relatives of the Luthor clan. Cat Grant had been invited but bowed out on the excuse that Miriam Hopkins had royally pissed off her grandmother at Pickfair one long ago summer. 

Alex milled about the lobby, sipping champagne from a courtesy cup. She was wearing dark slacks and a pinstriped blazer she’d nicked after a walk-on part in her school’s production of  _Guys and Dolls_. Earned, she reasoned, after the humiliation of falling off the stage during  _Luck Be a Lady._ Vickie had teased her for months. 

Officially, this wasn’t a work night, but she wanted to avoid Tramer, and after the mishap with the dosimeters, to help through investigating the old-fashioned way. So she ghosted through the crowd, eavesdropping on dreary conversations about snapping up foreclosures and the best ways to evict those who failed to make their balloon payments. 

The audience tonight was middle-aged or older, most of them white men who attempted to pass her their empty glasses. Vultures, maybe. But definitely not alien.

She brushed a fleck of dust from her lapel and took in the room. The Orpheum’s colorful lobby looked as if it had been draped in the business page from the National City Gazette.

Maggie wouldn’t be down here. She was likely up in the projection booth, checking and rechecking the equipment, or repolishing the lens on that old projector. Alex liked to watch her work on those machines, liked that focused, patient expression, the way she paused when she ran into a problem and retraced her steps. It made sense that she wanted to be a cop.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Winn offering up a champagne refill. He was wearing a fuchsia bowtie and a white shirt with a linen vest that was already starting to wrinkle.

“Like it?” he asked, tugging at the hem. “That woman over there that asked if it was Issey Miyake. ‘Yes, you can be one of us. One of us.’”

“It’s not that hard,” Alex said, allowing him to top off her cup. “You just need a rictus smile and a lack of enthusiasm for anything but money.” 

“You look sharp, Danvers,” Winn said. 

“Thanks.”  She glanced around, faintly hoping that Maggie wouldn’t be far behind. Instead, she saw what might only be called her fashion twin, regarding her coolly from a few feet away. The girl wore a charcoal suit to match her silken dark hair. Her eyes were a sharp green and she watched them with the haughty expression of a housecat when it spots another of its kind through a window.

“I see St. Tropez wasn’t on the list this summer,” Winn muttered. The girl, not deigning to hide her underage drinking, took a sip from a flute with a mildly dissatisfied air. She frowned and took a step toward them as if wanting to get it over with. 

“And who dragged you here tonight?” she said.

“Excuse me?” Alex looked at Winn and then back at the girl. “Nobody. We work here.”

The girl’s mouth formed an ‘oh’ and the hostility fled her expression. “My apologies. I was certain you were one of the Edge girls. Doubly sorry for  _that_.”

“The Edge…” Alex said. That one took a moment. The Edge girls were the obnoxious and bountiful progeny of Morgan Edge’s long string of botched marriages. Markita, Helena, Galina, Artemisia, Chastity—there were so damned many—all uniformly spoiled and vapid, and mostly famous for mistreating hotel staff and doing lines in the Whitehouse bathroom. Which one did she think--

The girl laughed at Alex’s expression. “Don’t try to remember them all now,” she said, “They’re bloody bots, the lot of them, stirring up trouble, providing distraction whenever there’s a climate change bill or a vote for affordable housing.” 

“That is a very good analogy,” Winn said.

“Except it isn’t. Not really.” She gave a wan smile and offered her hand. “Lena.”

“As in Luthor?” Winn said, shaking it. “I thought it might be you. I read about your work on Maxwell’s Demon. That was,” he exhaled “really, really impressive.”

“I’m a bit of an obsessive-compulsive demon myself,” Lena said, “but thank you.”

Alex’s mouth still wasn’t moving. “You’re the younger--”

“The ‘Littlest’ Luthor,” Lena said. “Doesn’t sound quite as bad.”  She took Alex’s hand and gave it a firm shake. Alex let out a faint squeak. This was Lena Luthor. The sister to Lex Luthor, Lex Luthor whom Kara’s cousin now had incarcerated on a specially constructed island off of Gloucester, Massachusetts. 

“I’m Alex Danvers,” she managed. “I sweep up popcorn.”  

She was beautiful, Alex thought. And there was something about her. Icy? Sure. Haughty? More than. Yet she evinced integrity and a straightforwardness Alex hadn’t seen in the other rich kids in Midvale.

“What brings you here?” Winn asked.

“Hank called me a few days ago. I’ve been stuck in National City helping my mother scout a location for the company. It was kind of him, really. He always seems to sense when you need a break, you know?”

 _Hank?_ The man knew everyone.

“Oh yeah,” Winn said nervously. “That’s Hank.”

“Anyway,” she said, “Film’s about to start, so I shan’t keep you. It was nice meeting you both.” She gave Alex a sly smile. “And apologies again. You dress much better than an Edge girl.” 

“Thanks?” Alex said and watched as the girl wove her way back through the crowd.

“Well,” Winn said, taking a long swig of champagne. “That was unexpected.” 

“I’ll say it was.”

Alex turned to see Tramer and felt her heart drop into her bowels. He’d was standing behind them, likely had been for a long time. She set her jaw and smiled, taking in that bland uniform of Brooks Brothers. The patent leather shoes. This was Ben Tramer in ten years, and the future looked dull. 

“Ben…hi.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and flashed an ‘awww shucks’ smile and Alex got a whiff of something insincere in the gesture. His affability was either a front or...he was just spineless. 

“I texted you a few times today,” he said. “My Dad asked me to come with. My mother has a migraine, so…here I am.”

“Here you are,” Alex said. 

“Lucky, right?” He scratched his head. “Didn’t think I’d get to see you until next week.”

“I know, right?” Alex said. A stiff chuckle escaped her. “Here I am. Working away. Working hard. Busy.”

Winn nudged her. “You are not!”

Alex bit her lip and turned, but Winn was already on a roll. “Lady Danvers here has the night off,” he said to Tramer.“She just likes hanging out with this lot.”

She was going to kill him.

“Hank asked me to help,” she said.

Winn gave her a playful shove and winked at Tramer. “Go on,” he said. “Movie’s about to start.”

“But I’ve seen it,” she hissed.

Tramer grinned and extended his arm. “Shall we?”

Alex stared daggers at Winn who seemed mystified by her response. He topped off her cup and she gulped it down, casting a forlorn glance at the ramp leading to the balcony. This time, Maggie was there. She stood at the top, her arm draped loosely over the gilded railing, in that same place Alex had seen her with her ex. Their eyes met and Alex struggled to tug her arm away from Tramer’s, to wave. But Maggie had already turned away.

#

Tramer led her to a love seat in the back of the auditorium, causing her to immediately down the rest of her champagne. She made sure to scoot to the far edge.

She’d been planning on telling him that it wasn’t going to work. She just hadn’t wanted to do it so soon. She didn’t want to date him, nor did he seem worth the drama of breaking up. 

They watched the film in silence. Alex sat straight, her back stiff against the plush velveteen seat as her certainty grew with each scene. If there was one test to know if you were compatible with someone, it was seeing a movie together. She remembered a date she’d had with Tony Kestler, a “woke” junior high peace activist who’d ruined a Terminator II revival with a string of self-righteous comments. “Grab a gun! That’ll fix it,” he’d sneered. “They fix everything, right?” Alex wasn’t pro-gun, but neither was she pro-scold, and  _Terminator II_? That was sacred. She dumped Tony in the lobby before sneaking back inside to watch the 9 o’clock show.

To his credit, Tramer was just a bore. He didn’t seem to get the humor at all. In the opening scene, when a man, robbed of 20,000 lire, explained to police that he’d let a stranger into his room because he was expecting “business associates,” Tramer looked around the auditorium, blinkered by the scattered laughter. 

Of course, Maggie had explained the joke. “He was expecting a male escort,” she said. “This was Pre-Code, or before the censors really sharpened their knives. They shoved in everything they could back then.”

Tramer reached over and tried to take her hand, but Alex feigned a sneeze and pulled it away. He took that as a license to scoot closer, slipping his arm around the back of the seat.

“Hey, um, you know?” she whispered, leaning in, “I’d really like to talk. About us.”

“Sure,” Tramer said, “how about after?”

“Oh, see? I can’t,” she said. “I mean, I’m busy.”

“That guy said you were off tonight,” Tramer said.

“No, I mean, my Mom. I promised her I’d be home early tonight. We’re skyping my sister. The time difference.”

“Isn’t Costa Rica only an hour’s difference?” He turned to her in the dark, and Alex could see the wheels turning slowly in his mind. She remembered what Greta Garbo had said about Robert Taylor. 

 _So handsome. And so dumb_. 

Maggie had told her that, too. 

“Oh, yes, well,” Alex said, “Kara’s in Themy…the Themazorez Islands. Those are farther off.”

“Shhhh!” A woman three rows in front of them turned and leveled a glare. “You’d think this was a library.”

“What?” Tramer laughed before reaching over to cup Alex’s face in his hands. As he leaned in, she grabbed the arm of the seat and pushed herself up. “Oh my god! Look!” Tramer turned back to the screen, looking frustrated and befuddled. Alex had been lying; she’d only meant to distract him, but when they both refocused on the screen, she saw it. Just a flash. A shift of light and shadow rustling the curtain in an opera box. But she’d memorized those features, the dark eyes that had met her own a half hour before on the balcony ramp. 

 _Maggie_. She was on the screen. In the  _film_.

She sucked in a breath. “Oh my god. Oh god, oh god, oh god…”

“Alex?” Tramer said. He was holding her by the shoulders, a look of concern on his face.

“Shhhh!” the woman said again. 

“Hey, you shut up!” Tramer said.  

Alex shoved him away and got to her feet. She leaned on the empty seat in front of her, feeling the bile rise in her throat. Her head was spinning. She’d had too much to drink, but she was certain. She couldn’t— She looked up, scanned another crowd scene and saw nothing. The same automobiles trundling past. The same well-dressed extras moving to the bright accompaniment of the orchestral soundtrack.

“I have to go,” she said. Tramer took her by the wrist but she pulled it away,  stepping over him into the aisle.  

So  _this_  was why Maggie had been so angry. She had a secret. Was she alien? Echlechtian, even? Echlechtians were rare, their species having been wiped out in a similar cataclysm to Krypton’s. From what she knew, they weren’t capable of shapeshifting, yet convergent evolution meant their appearance was human enough that only a little prosthetic magic would suffice. She couldn’t be Martian. They were wiped out. Had been for hundreds of Earth years. Durlan? 

Her mind racing, she hurried out into the lobby and rushed up the ramp to the projection booth. The door was locked predictably. She cursed and slammed her fist down hard on its metal surface. 

“Maggie?” she said. “Hey! Open up!”

It dawned on her that she was angry. Maggie had lied to her, by omission, but somehow, even though they didn’t know each other well, a bond had formed between them. Enough for this to feel like a betrayal.

She hit the door again. Once, twice, three times. “Maggie! Let me in.”

“Alex?”

Tramer had followed her up the ramp. 

_Oh fuck._

“Alex? What is it, babe?”

 _Babe_?

Alex turned all the way around, felt her stomach curdle has her fingers closed into fists. “Don’t call me that. I’m not your babe. I’m not your anything.”

Tramer’s face went pale,  and he stumbled backward as if shoved by the force of her words. She watched him shrink, felt her anger loosen into nausea and regret.  She heard the latch click and the groan of the heavy door as it opened behind her. 

“Danvers?” Maggie said. She had one hand shading her eyes as they adjusted to the light. She looked groggy, like she’d just been torn from a deep sleep. She glanced at Alex and then Tramer, her confusion melding into comprehension, and then rage.

“You,” she said to Tramer. He was still standing there, looking like he’d been stabbed in the heart. “Get out of here.”  

“Ben?” Alex's eyes trailed after him as he turned to leave, but Maggie grabbed her by the wrist and tugged her into the projection booth. She pulled the door shut and lowered the latch before turning and pressing her hand to Alex’s face.

“Are you okay?” she said, her voice thick with worry. “Did that jock bastard hurt you?” 

Alex shook her head and stared at Maggie’s lips. The other girl’s touch was burning her skin, but she felt herself leaning into it. Maggie dropped her hand. Alex looked up and fell into the softness of those dark eyes. 

“I hurt him,” she said.

Maggie smiled and her voice cracked as she said it. “Well, you’re a heartbreaker.”

“Why did you lie to me?”

Maggie squinted at her, confusion wiping the concern from her eyes. “What?”

Alex lifted her finger, took a long breath. If you were going to bluff, you had to go big. “I know who you are.” 

Maggie took a step back and laughed. “Who I am, huh? ‘Cause clearly when it comes to that boyfriend of yours, you don’t know much about yourself.”  

Alex paused, felt the implication of what she was saying pierce her chest. So Maggie knew, had sensed Alex’s lack of interest in him from miles away. 

“Don’t deflect,” she said, taking a step forward. “I saw you. You were …in that…” she pointed out the booth window, “on that screen like--”

“Shouldn’t have hit the champagne so hard, Danvers.”

“--some kind of Hitchcock cameo.”

Maggie clapped her hands together, a mock ‘eureka.’ “Riiiight. Just like a Hitch cameo. I spliced myself into the film.”

“Stop it.” Alex took a step closer and Maggie almost backed into the projector. She put a hand behind her to steady herself, and Alex reached out, placed one hand on Maggie’s shoulder as the other slid into the pocket of her jacket. She expected the other girl to pull away, but Maggie froze, her lips parted as Alex pulled her closer. She ran her hand down Maggie’s arm, feeling the taut bicep beneath, her eyes never leaving hers as she drew a bracelet from the pocket of her jacket and held it to the dim light. It was gold. Real. It shimmered in the flicker of the projector. 

“Now,” Alex said, in a voice so calm, she surprised herself. It was as if the contact with Maggie was anchoring her, easing out what she needed to say. “If take this down to Pratt’s pawnshop, they’re not going to tell me it’s fake, are they?”

Maggie sighed. “I told you. I have friends in stagecraft. I do this as a side gig.” She snorted and looked away. “This is stupid.”

“I aced upper division chemistry classes at NCU when I was twelve,” Alex said. “I can tell. This is real.”

She was only half lying. She’d need a precision scale and some water to do that, but she _could_.

Maggie reached up, presumably to remove Alex’s hand, but she covered it with her own, kept it there.

“I think you’re drunk, Danvers.”

“And you’re lying.” 

“So what if I am?” she said. “Does it matter?”

“It matters because,” Alex said, and discovered her voice was shaking, “you’re the one person I thought wouldn’t.” 

Maggie winced. She stroked the back of Alex’s hand with her thumb, and Alex found herself wanting to relax into her, to kiss her. Instead, she whispered. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“Alex, that doesn’t—”

“Are you Durlan? Echlechtian?”

“You have no right.”

The sharpness in Maggie’s tone stung. Alex bit her lip and let go. She stepped away and slumped down into the director’s chair next to the door. Maggie was right. It wasn’t her place. She was intruding, and yet, she still felt hurt. This was how Ben felt. When you liked someone more than they liked you. To feel connected to another person, and to misread them so dreadfully.

Alex bent low and buried her face in her hands. She’d hurt Tramer and called Maggie a liar. It was no wonder she couldn’t be trusted with the truth.

“I’m sorry, I just—I don’t know what’s going on anymore,” Alex said, her voice breaking. “Who I am. What the hell I’m doing. I—”

“Hey…” Maggie's voice was soft. Alex heard the rustle of leather and fabric as the other girl approached and slipped an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into her, grateful, her heart pounding in confusion and distress at what she’d said. What she’d done and seen.

“I’m an ass,” Alex said. 

“You’re a seventeen-year-old,” Maggie said. 

Maggie held her in silence and Alex waited for her to move away, prepared herself for the absence of warmth, the retreat of that scent of lavender and leather. But she sensed that Maggie didn’t want to move either.

“I’m not, by the way,” Maggie said.

“Seventeen?”

Maggie laughed. 

“She means she’s not an alien.”

The voice was deep and low and the two girls sprang apart to see Hank. He was in the room. Somehow. Standing right in front of the door, but the latch was still lowered. 

“ _I_  am,” he said. 

“J’onn,” Maggie said, her voice a whisper. “J’onn, you’d better be sure about this.”

Hank folded his arms. “Alex Danvers has been through enough, Maggie. You both have. I think it’s time to come clean. To avoid any more trouble at the very least.”

“You’re…” Alex sat up. “Oh hoooo, that’s why my mother didn’t want me working here.” 

Hank grimaced, but there was a touch of humor in his voice. “Likely. I know your mother and father, Alex. Have worked with them many times in the past, although not always on the best of terms. I was surprised when you applied. Wondered if Jeremiah wasn’t attempting to check on me, but your parents have too much integrity for that. I took it as a lucky opportunity to get to know you better. And I haven’t been disappointed.”

“Are you Eclechtian?” Alex asked.

Hank shook his head. “You’re closer than I’d care to admit, but no. My name is J’onn J’onzz and I’m Martian. The last of my kind.”

“Martian,” Alex said, the word a whispered revelation. Her parents had kept that one from her. Despite her showing time and time again that she could keep Kara’s secret. She felt another pang of resentment. 

“Now,” Hank/J’onn said, “if you tell your mother about this, I’ll fire you myself. I’d like to keep the DEO out of the cinema business.” 

Alex nodded. “My father has crap taste in movies anyway. _Under Siege_.”

“That is bad,” Maggie said.

J’onn laughed. Then his expression sobered and he turned to Maggie. “Take the rest of the night off. I think you have some explaining to do as well.” 

Maggie sat up in protest. "I need to talk to you about  _Thirteen Wo_ —”

“Not now,” J’onn said. “Go and get some air. Talk.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Terminator II date is based in truth. You do not ruin T2.


	8. Out of the Past

Maggie took Alex up to the roof, a narrow square of asphalt tucked between a storage shed and the neon genie’s lamp that overlooked the street. From there, they could take in the five block stretch that made up Midvale’s downtown. For a few minutes, they stood in silence, processing the revelation that had come earlier, listening to the intermittent crackle of the neon, the bursts of chatter and laughter as the people below made their way into restaurants and cafes, out of the boutique shops that were just closing up. The night was warm but comfortable, and the air wafting in from the sea felt cool against Alex’s skin. 

“I come up here to clear my head,” Maggie said. “Even slept up here a couple of times, but seagull droppings are a rude awakening.” 

Alex laughed, almost forgetting the heaviness between them. “I think,” she said, not counting those late night adventures with her sister, “this may be the highest point I’ve ever been in this town.” She watched Maggie lean over the parapet. She was waiting, she realized, for the right moment to begin. 

“I wasn’t dreaming, was I?” 

She heard a faint exhale, saw Maggie’s fingers tighten around the dusty barrier to the street below before she let go and turned to face her. The golden glow of the neon shone in her eyes, giving her an almost otherworldly appearance.

“Are you meta human?” Despite the numerous times her mother had told her about metas, described the research being done in Star City and Gotham, the words sounded strange on her tongue. 

Maggie shook her head, her eyes widening as if she was reappraising the task in front of her. “I’m not alien. Not metahuman. Not really. What happened to me could have happened to anyone under the right circumstances.” 

There was something in the way she said those last two words, as if they were cutting her on the way out. She walked over to the shed and opened the door, retrieving two fold out chairs. They were light and made of wicker, and the sun and sea air had worn down the rattan. She sat and leaned forward, staring into the asphalt as if seeking some kind of divination.

“Everything there is in color. You can see it,” she held her hand out and flexed her fingers, “touch it, taste it. Just like here.”

“Like the necklace?” Alex said. 

“Real, too.” Her expression hardened and

Alex took a step back. 

“Listen, you don’t have to tell me if it makes you uncomfortable.“

“No. J’onn’s right.” Maggie locked Alex in her gaze. “And I want to.” 

Her eyes were soft. Alex still couldn’t fathom it, how that hard, arrogant expression could melt so quickly into something so vulnerable. Her lips curved into an almost imperceptible smile, and she looked away again “I was fourteen when I realized I was different. I fell for a girl and made the mistake of telling her, and well, Hoppers isn’t Midvale. It’s a small conservative town that hangs on every word spewed from the pulpit of the New Light church.”

“Ah,” Alex said, “them.” She’d seen that hulking plywood monument from a distance during road trips, even knew a few kids at school who were part of the congregation. They were always the same mealy-mouthed shits who protested the Day of Silence and tattled on the pot smokers. 

Maggie nodded. “My Mom never misses a Sunday. And my Dad? He’s a lapsed Catholic. I like to think he might not have cared as much, but he was up for reelection and he couldn’t have a queer for a daughter throwing a shoe into those plans.”

Alex felt a surge of shame. When she’d met Maggie, she’d thought it weird that she practically lived up in that projection booth. Thought it was mooching disguised as hipster affectation. Once again, she’d been shamefully wrong.

“I came home and he’d already packed a suitcase for me. Didn’t tell me why. Didn’t explain.He just ordered me to the car and drove me the four hours to my aunt’s place.” Maggie folded her hands, squeezed them tightly until her knuckles turned white. “Even in the car, he sat so far away, like he was going to fall out of the driver side. My aunt lived just outside of here, worked in the cannery over in Davis to pay for nursing school. Only, he hadn’t bothered to check whether she’d be home that night. He didn’t wait to see if I’d gotten inside. Just left me there on the front porch like he couldn’t get away fast enough. So, I sat there and I waited.” She let out a tart laugh. “And I waited. And well, I don’t know if you remember, but that was a cold winter.”

Alex did remember. What was it? Five years ago when the first snow fell in Midvale in thirty years. She remembered the crunch of frozen seagrass beneath her sneakers, remembered bending to palm an agate coated in frost, the cold sting of it in her hand.

“I wish I’d known you then,” Alex said, the words falling from her like a plea. She looked away, feeling her heart sink with the weight of Maggie’s gaze. “So...what did you do?” 

Maggie got up and walked toward the parapet. 

“What I could do. I left her a note and started walking. Midvale wasn’t far, but it was late and there was nothing open. Nothing but this place.” She smiled, her eyes distant. “J’onn was running a Barbara Stanwyck marathon, a big noir-sized fuck off to Valentine’s Day. I didn’t exactly get that then, just needed a place to get warm. I bought a ticket and sat in the back. And you know?” She turned back to Alex and smiled. Not bitterly. There was just a sadness, tinged with a wry fascination as if she was still trying to piece it all together. “The first thing that started up was  _The Strange Love of Martha Ivers_.”

“I’ve seen that,” Alex said, surprising herself. She didn’t remember much, but there was a girl, a runaway being dragged back to live with a wealthy, sadistic aunt. “That must have been—”

“My Tia’s not like that, but it was...timely. I mean, everything up on the screen felt like some twisted reflection of my life. J’onn thinks that might have been what triggered it. I mean,  _Stella Dallas_.” She laughed. 

Alex shrugged to signal that she hadn’t seen it, and Maggie reached into her jacket, tugging out a small silver flask.

“It’s a melodrama. A mother rejects her daughter, only it’s all for her own good. She’s going to marry a society guy and Stanwyck abandons her so she can take her proper place in the wasps’ nest. In the last scene, Stella’s out on the street, in the rain, watching through the window of a mansion while her kid marries some asshole.” Maggie shot her a sidelong glance, “He kind of looked like your boyfriend to be honest.”

“My—”Alex shook her head, “he isn’t. Not anymore.”

Maggie raised an eyebrow, a playfulness softening the pain in her voice. “You sure about that?”

Alex stared back, the answer stuck in her throat. Maggie unscrewed the flask and offered it to her. Alex declined. She hadn’t yet acquired the taste for anything harder than beer. She watched as Maggie took a long pull, grimacing as it went down, like she was about to operate on herself. 

“I drifted off at some point. And when I woke up, I was…there. Only I was the one getting married. To a fucking guy. And I looked up and I could see my own mother through the window, looking in. I wanted to go to her, to tell Randolph or Chester or whatever his fucking name was to go to hell, and Alex,” she looked at her, her eyes haunted. “It felt so real and like the worst practical joke of all time. I’d never marry a guy, and my mother, she’d never be at that window, would never want me unless I did.”

She drained the rest of the flask and dropped it to the asphalt. Alex stood up, and walked unsteadily to the parapet, placing a tentative hand on the other girl’s shoulder.“I’m so sorry, Maggie.”

Maggie took a long shuddering breath. “I think that maybe the worst part was that my parents were so much like Stella, cowering, lowering themselves to this ideal constructed by the rich white assholes who ran everything.” She turned back and met Alex’s gaze. “Still run everything.”

Alex stiffened. Maggie had called her a rich kid before, even though her family was Midvale middle-class--which meant barely middle-class at all in these parts. But her perspective had been warped by all that abundance. She’d never appreciated it before. The education. The big house that now seemed a little too close in resemblance to that of Martha Ivers or  _The Magnificent Ambersons_. She could only repeat herself like some kind of numb automaton. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. 

Maggie looked at the hand on her shoulder as if she had just noticed her proximity. Alex moved to pull away, but Maggie reached up and placed her hand over Alex’s, a silent request to steady her.

“When I woke up, really woke up, it was morning. The place was emptied out. But J’onn was there. He called my aunt and brought me some food from the diner next door. Maybe Tia had told him, or maybe he’d read my mind. But he said I could come back. That I’d always have a seat on the house. And that’s when I reached into my pocket and found the rings.” Maggie slipped her fingers beneath her shirt collar and drew out a chain. Around it were two silver wedding bands.

“From the film?” Alex said. 

Maggie nodded. “I kept them as a reassurance that I wasn’t going crazy, which was good. Because it kept happening.”

“Do you know how?” Alex asked. “Did Hank--J’onn say what causes it?”

Her mind was racing, both with the story Maggie had told her and the feel of the other girl’s fingers on her skin. 

Maggie was closer now, her breath smelled of Jeremiah’s best scotch.

“The Orpheum’s built over a hot spot. One of several that were hit in a Martian meteor storm thousands of years ago. The ore emits a particle that pulls on the psyche. J’onn says the people on his planet used to commune with it, used it to create works of art, architecture, poetry. But sometimes a trauma can make you more susceptible, tug at your consciousness until you fall right over the edge.” She stopped and ran a hand through her hair. “He hasn’t seen it happen with a human before. Not without a Martian or other psychically enhanced species working a mind meld. I guess I was the freak exception.”

Alex wanted to tell her about Kara, wanted to reassure her that she wasn’t, but the words tumbled out as breath. So Maggie had been outed, and cruelly, only to be burdened with another secret. 

“Can you control it?”

“Most of the time. J’onn said the best way for me to do that was to learn as much as I could about the medium. So,” she shrugged and gestured around her, “here I am.” 

“And the jewelry?” Alex said, unable to contain her curiosity. “I mean, you could buy out Wayne Industries with that ability.”

Maggie held up her hand. “My aunt had a bout with cancer. She’s okay, they got it, but the treatment bills aren’t. The jewelry is the one exception I’ll make. For her. J’onn says it’s dangerous. Tinkering much can tear a hole in reality.”

Alex frowned. “Is that what’s happening with the apparitions?”

“I’ve considered it,” Maggie said. She let go of Alex’s hand and bent to pick up the flask. “But I haven’t removed enough for that to happen. And as you’ve noticed, our visitors don’t seem to have come from Trouble in Paradise. I think it’s related. But for a different reason.” She straightened and faced her. “J’onn isn’t convinced, but I’m pretty sure it’s connected to the restoration project.” She held out her hand. “Come to the reel room? I can show you.”

Alex froze for a moment. She didn’t want to leave. Didn’t want to give up the solitude they now shared. “Maggie?” The question tumbled out. “How did you know?”

“Know what?” Maggie said. “That I can drop into the middle of Rick’s bar in...”

She stopped as the meaning of Alex’s question hit her.

“I can’t,” Alex said, her voice breaking. “You know? I can’t even say it.”

“Danvers?” Maggie said. She reached up and traced her fingers over Alex’s cheek, and Alex closed her eyes, leaning into the warmth of her hand. “Jesus, you’re as much of a mess as I am.” 

“Yeah?” Alex lifted her hand and pressed Maggie’s to her face. “‘Cause that sounds really good about now.”

Maggie beamed, a smile that could have put the neon to shame had it been allowed to last.

A scream, high-pitched and piercing, reverberated from the half open door to the stairway. The sound rattled the asphalt under their feet. 

“I guess I was wrong about _Trouble in Paradise,_ ” Maggie said. She gave Alex’s shoulder a squeeze. “Hey, we’ll talk about this. I promise.” 

“I know,” Alex said, and this time, she let Maggie take her hand and lead her back into the depths of the Orpheum.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a killer. Talky chapters are murderous. 
> 
> A shout out to Thelxiope who suggested the Barbara Stanwyck connection. It makes so much sense!


	9. Save Martha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mild trigger warning in the endnotes.

The scream sounded again. Loud and long, it stretched through the time it took the two of them to make it to the projection booth. Once inside, Alex realized it wasn’t one voice, but several. Maggie hurried to shut off the old machine. The lead whickered violently against the feed spool and her hand took a hard swipe as she reached up to stop it.

“Shit,” she said shaking the sting from her fingers. “This is old nitrate stock. J’onn shouldn’t have left it like this.”

Alex wanted to see to her injury, but another shout pulled her attention to the window. With the projector bulb off, she could see the auditorium clearly. Some in the audience were crowding around the orchestra pit, a few them bending backward, hands jammed into the pockets of jackets and trousers as they peered up at a willowy blond in an even more willowy dress.

“Maggie. Take a look at this!" 

The woman was frail, almost ethereal. She stood at the edge of one of the mock box seats framing the proscenium arch over the screen, her arms at her sides, her wrists turned up in an almost dainty pose as she gazed down at the crowd.  

“Sure as hell isn’t Miriam Hopkins,” Maggie said.

“It’s all right, hon!” someone called out. It was a man’s voice, replete with condescension. “You don’t want to mess up that pretty dress, now do you?” 

 “Not how you do it,” Maggie said. “Come on, Danvers.”

J’onn was there as they opened the door. He closed his eyes in relief and nodded to the projector.  "I went to call emergency services. I’m glad you both stayed close by.”

"You'd best take a close look," Maggie said. 

She grabbed Alex’s hand and they hurried out of the booth and down to the auditorium. When they got there, the place was in chaos, with the audience either clambering out into the lobby or closer to the screen to take a look. Maggie gave Alex's shoulder a quick squeeze before she started fighting her way down the aisle.

"Go, Danvers!” she called back to her. “Do what you did with those bats!"

Alex went into crowd control mode, helping a few of the elderly make their way through the narrow rows to the aisles, forcing back those men who tried to push their way ahead of women and children. _They really do look like Billy Zane_ , she thought. She heard another shout and stole a look at the commotion, distracted by the sight of Maggie’s shoulders, the shine in those dark locks as she pulled another lookie-loo away from the pit. That same asshole whom she now recognized as Tramer's father. What was his name? Winslow? Whippet?

“Step away, Sir,” Maggie said.

The man turned around and gave her a once over. “If it isn’t Henshaw’s little grease monkey.”

Maggie didn’t answer. Instead, she stepped forward and with a single, graceful movement shoved the man aside like a pile of unwanted books. She hopped into the pit, her steps tentative as she made her approach. 

“Hey,” she said, softly. "You want to talk?"

The girl's eyes distant and devoid of hope. She parted her lips and mouthed a question. Alex thought it was 'Martha.' 

She repeated it. Louder this time. "Martha? Is that you?"

"Yeah," Maggie said. "It's me. I've been waiting for you. I wanted to see you."

She was stalling her, Alex realized. Waiting for J’onn to grab her from behind, but there wasn’t enough time. The woman stepped forward, and then lifting her arms and raising her foot like a Japanese crane, she toppled forward into the empty air.

The gasp Alex emitted was overwhelmed by the cacophony of shrieks from the remaining onlookers. The would-be heroes scattered backward, their gallantry dissipating with the girl’s descent. Alex saw a flash of bright fabric, heard a sickening thud as the girl hit the floor. There was a protracted hush in the room and then, Alex, her mouth agape and stomach roiling, watched Maggie hoist herself from the pit. The other girl was breathing heavily, her expression dark, a question.

"Maggie?" Alex climbed over a seat and hurried toward her, shoving through a few of the men who'd stepped forward to survey the carnage.

There wasn’t any.

Nothing.

No sign of impact. Just an overpowering scent.

Flowers.

Gardenias, to be exact.

Eliza used to plant them on the widow’s walk until Kara told her they reminded her of Krypton. _Arimeil-Ora_. The bud of the feast trees that grew in public squares, "so that no one would go hungry." The twelve-year-old fell into a depression that lasted days. 

“Ghosts come in many forms,” Eliza had told her as she'd hoisted the planters into a wheelbarrow. “A smell, a single note from a song can be enough to send you back to a place, only it's fleeting. And for Kara, at this stage, immensely painful."

“This a theater or Skywalker Ranch?” 

A voice pulled her from the memory. 

The men were grinning at one another, blinkered and laughing in that loud, wheezing way that men did when they weren’t sure if they were being let in on a joke or ridiculed on another level entirely.

“Skinwalker Ranch is more like it.”

Alex felt a hand on the small of her back. 

“You okay?” Maggie said.

She nodded, “yeah,” and then as if she’d granted her permission, Maggie slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her into a loose embrace. It was casual, meant to reassure, but Alex felt her body sinking into the other girl, reveling in the lingering smell of the night air that clung to her, that brief show of protectiveness that actually made her feel…protected. Tramer was taller. A lot taller. he could have enveloped Alex in his arms, but with him, it felt like slow dancing with an inflatable Tube man. It was Maggie who made her feel safe. Safe and warm, yet somehow giddy and unsteady. She found herself dipping her head, leaning in closer to catch a whiff of Maggie's scent. "Do you know what that was?" 

Maggie looked away. “We’d better talk to J’onn,” she said.

#

An hour later, after the police had gone and the remaining guests had drunk enough of the champagne to question, if not forget what they’d seen, the five of them sat in J’onn’s office. Mona and Winn, Alex learned, had long been allowed in on the truth of the Martian’s identity but offered no acknowledgment that Alex was now part of that secret. There’d be no welcoming rite of passage, no special badge offering her membership in this strange new club. Mona looked exhausted, and Winn sat on the floor, fingers raking through a box of Raisinets, which he plucked out like some finicky child. Maggie took a seat next to Alex this time. As the sofa sank with their weight, she felt the not unpleasant pressure of Maggie’s body against her own. 

Winn held up a nub of candy, stared at it like he wasn’t sure it wasn’t a turd. “With all due respect, Mr. J’onnz. I don’t think you could install a hologram of that quality on the down-low. You’d need a forklift, possibly a crane.”

J’onn bowed his head, his expression doubtful. “Do you think your father would agree with that assessment?”

Winn’s eyes shot up. “Hey, did I not offer to talk to him?” He tossed the candy into a waste paper bin near the door. 

“Then do so,” J’onn said. “I think we need to branch out about who-”

Alex felt Maggie’s fingers encircle her knee, she was pressing down, leaning into her for reassurance.

“Peg Entwistle,” Maggie said.

“Who?” Winn tossed another candy into the bin. 

Maggie ignored him. “That's who our apparition was. I'm sure of it.”

J’onn turned his attention from Winn. “From _Thirteen Women_? We haven’t even begun the restoration. I don't know who'd even know about—”

“I have,” Maggie said. “I mean, I started on it ahead of schedule. And I'm finished with _I Know Your Name._ I’m sorry, I should have told you, but I didn’t think you’d want me to with my college applications. _”_

J’onn’s eyes went wide with astonishment. “The Veidt film?"

“Finished, for the most part," Maggie said. "I wanted to make sure I got the job done," she said. "In case things came through and I had to leave.”

There it was, Alex thought. The Future. The future of Maggie’s absence versus the present warmth of her body, the feel of those long, tapered fingers drumming nervously on her knee.

“I uh, know you wanted to give priority to _Vampyr_ and _Pandora’s Box_ ," she continued, "but I had some time, and I,” she looked at Alex, then back at the rest of the group. “I think this might be my fault.”

J’onn took a step back. “I'm lost, Maggie. I don’t understand how any of that or you were the cause of these emanations. I mean,” he shook his head, “we’ve done countless restorations, _Trouble in Paradise, Sunrise_. Yet," he shrugged, "no flapper girls or jewel thieves flying off the screen.”

Alex coughed and looked at the floor. Maggie gave her knee another squeeze and stood up. “Maybe,” she said, “because those films weren’t butchered by censors, or in the latter case, nearly wiped from existence by Nazis.”

“Who’s this Peggy person?” Mona said.

“It's Peg.” Maggie started to pace, one hand tugging absently at a tress of dark hair. “Better known as the ghost of the Hollywood sign.”

Winn scoffed. “I knew you liked blondes, Sawyer, but this is heading into crazy town.”

“Leave it, Schott,” J’onn said. “Or so help me I’ll restock the concessions stand with nothing but Necco Wafers.”

 “Didn’t they stop making those?” Mona said.

“I can see to it that they start again,” J’onn said, and Winn clamped his mouth shut. "Hear her out."

"Entwistle was a New York stage actress," Maggie said, "by way of the Welsh countryside. So good, in fact, that a young Bette Davis saw her performing one night and that was that.”

“No Entwistle, no _All About Eve_ ,” J’onn clarified.

Alex hadn’t seen _All About Eve_ , but she’d heard enough about it from Kara. “Reminds me of something Clark’s girlfriend might write,” Kara said. “Cynical, but still manages to have a little faith in people, you know?”

Alex didn’t know. Kara had a little too much faith in everybody sometimes.  

“Was she murdered?” she asked.

Maggie stopped pacing, one foot worrying the edge of the Persian carpet. “Suicide. She made a bad move during a bad time. Left New York during the Depression to make some money in the pictures, only things didn’t go as planned. She was at the end of her contract at RKO when she got a part in _Thirteen Women.”_

“Thirteen,” Winn said. “Now, see? Maybe she should have--”

“Neccos,” J’onn said.

Maggie looked at Winn and shrugged. “The part should have been her big break. Problem was, the character she was playing was a lesbian.”

“So she turned down the role?” Mona said.

Maggie shook her head.  “Entwistle was a theater girl. Had no qualms about that kind of thing. But she made the mistake of thinking that the Hollywood of the 1930s was on the same page. When the film wrapped, the censors decided to make an example of it. 73 minutes was whittled down to 59, most of them Entwistle’s scenes with another woman. Imagine. Your breakthrough role is reduced to four minutes of screen time and your throughline no longer makes sense. It took less time for RKO to end her contract. And then she walked up into the hills and ended herself." 

 “So the Orpheum’s being haunted by the ghost of a dead lesbian,” Winn said. “Just my luck.”

Maggie didn’t even deign to glare. “Entwistle wasn’t queer. And this isn’t some prurient Hollywood story, Winn. I think we’re seeing her in whatever incarnation because she was erased. Because her character, and as a result, the experiences of an entire group of people were left on the cutting room floor. That kind of anger doesn’t go away. It stays and festers until it finds an outlet.”

“But Veidt didn't die,” J’onn said. “He went on to enjoy a successful career." He grimaced. "Inspired that clown-faced terrorist in Gotham from what I've heard."  

“His co-lead Gerd Waldmann didn’t,” Maggie said. “He was disowned and blacklisted. And in`33 was rounded up in a raid of the Hirschfeld Institute, the same raid that destroyed the last full copy of the film. Even after we finish the work, we'll be left with just a few minutes of him. Scraps." 

J’onn pressed his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes. “The Ismenius particle,” he said. “In the scrolls of Akara-sh’ior, it is a voice for the buried.”

Alex started at the name. The scrolls of Akara-sh’ior were listed in one of the footnotes in the article she'd taken from Eliza's database. In reference to the signature radiation detected in Lascaux, the same particles that had given Maggie her abilities. 

“It brings back the dead?” Winn asked.

J’onn shook his head. “Buried stories. Here they would be everything from Biblical Apocrypha to the pages of E.C. Comics. On Mars, they were the Legends of Tarkos, the Atrini-B'ar Cycle, The Chronicles of Lle'shtwo, the texts of which were burned by the White Martians. All our stories, the ones untold, that might have been, those that were forbidden or destroyed before they could form part of the collective memory. " He turned to Maggie, his expression full of sympathy and quiet awe. "You've tapped into that, Maggie, far more profoundly than I realized."  

Maggie folded her hands to keep them from trembling. “I'm sorry I brought this on you," she said, "After everything you've done...I wanted to help. I wanted to fix-"

"—the past," J'onn said. He put an arm around her, and Alex saw a tear slip down Maggie's cheek. She almost resented him in that moment. She wanted to comfort her, to regain that contact they’d had earlier. 

"You were eager to right a wrong," J'onn continued. "You've got nothing to apologize for."

“So what do we do then?” Mona said. “Bring in an exorcist? Not a homophobic one, I mean." 

“Yeah, um,” Winn said, "don't think they have any of those."

Alex sat up, an idea flickering in the delirium of everything that had happened that night. "What - what if that's the answer?" she said. "What if they want her to restore the films. Not as is, you know, but back to their original versions? Maybe that's why they're materializing."

Maggie straightened and their eyes locked. She looked like she was getting her wind back. "That fight on the balcony. It's not in any of the footage. But in the script there's a brawl in the stadium."

"And Entwistle?" J'onn said.

Maggie smiled. "Martha was the name of her onscreen lover." 

"Maybe you have to save the girlfriend," Winn said. He furrowed his brow. "Wait a minute. Save Martha. I think I've heard that somewhere before." 

"Don't go there," Maggie said. "Problem is we can't restore the films if the footage no longer exists. Once in a while, an old gem turns up, like the reel from _Metropolis_ they found in a toolshed in New Zealand. But all we have are stills and improvised title cards." 

“We could recreate it then,” Winn said. “Put on a show.”

“So, now you’re Mickey Rooney?” Mona said.

"You think I can't do it?" Winn said. 

J'onn cleared his throat. “We've made progress. Thank you for your honesty, Maggie. And you Alex. Your idea is promising, but tonight has been rough. I suggest you all go home and get some sleep." 

“I’ll keep a watch on things here,” Maggie said.

J’onn looked at Alex and something passed between them. A suggestion. But one that felt like her idea -- as if he'd drawn it out of her unconscious. "My place is ten-minutes away," she said. "You could stay over?" 

To her surprise, Maggie didn't refuse. She took a tissue and wiped her eyes. “Yeah?”

Alex nodded. “It's quiet and big and my sister and Dad are out of town.  It’s just me and my Mom right now, and she’s likely holed up in her room with a backlog of _Asimov’s."_

“Your Mom a nerd, too, Danvers?”

Alex choked out a laugh. "Why do you say _that?"_

"You accessorize with radiation badges," Maggie said, "and there's a Star Trek insignia on the sole of your sneaker."

"Oh, see. That was my sister's. I stepped on that." 

Maggie raised an eyebrow and Alex found herself laughing. Then she took Maggie's hand. Easily, like it was a date and they'd planned it all along. "Do you like frozen pizza? 'Cause if you don't, there's some leftover lasagna. And I think we could maybe sneak a few beers from the cellar."

"Got any scotch?"

Alex remembered the bottle of Talisker her father kept in his study.  

"My Dad has the good stuff,” she said, “but I don’t think he’d miss it.” 

It was the best kind of lie, she realized. So much better than the one she'd been living. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Reference to suicide. Not one of the characters. 
> 
> Gerd Waldmann and I Know Your Name are both fictional, although Conrad Veidt did star in Anders Als Die Andern (1919), an early Weimar era film and one of the first sympathetic depictions of same-sex love on screen. Entwistle was/is real, and the parallels between her story and the short shrift given to Sanvers are as unsettling as they are endless. 
> 
>  
> 
> Necco Wafers are the bomb, Daddy-0. Don't@me.


	10. Caught

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the lag in updates. This is a short nerdfluff chapter, but more has been written and will be up very soon.

Contrary to Alex’s promise, Eliza was not barricaded in her room when they arrived. She stood in the kitchen stirring a mug of tea, a worn paperback sagging from the pocket of her bathrobe. As they entered, she gave Alex and her houseguest a mildly appraising look. “You're home earlier than I expected."

“It’s been...a night,” Alex said, before stopping herself, wondering how much she could really tell her mother after the promise she’d made to J’onn. "This is Ma--"

But Eliza was already stepping forward and offering Maggie her hand. “Eliza. Alex’s mother," she said, "although that’s probably clear.”

Maggie looked at Alex uncertainly but her grip on her mother’s hand was firm and confident. “Maggie. Alex was nice enough to ask me over tonight. I hope that’s okay.”

“Of course, Sweetie,” Eliza said, a glimmer of worry in her expression. “You two look exhausted."

"We are," Alex managed with a shrug. There was really no reason for it, but she found herself suddenly tongue-tied in front of her mother. She’d brought plenty of girlfriends— _girl friends_ —home before, but Eliza’s gaze, she saw, concealed something different from the bemused scrutiny she leveled at her and Kara's schoolmates. She seemed to be sizing Maggie up, and Maggie, with her back straight and her gaze direct and warm, seemed to be falling seamlessly into sync with her expectations. As if she'd passed this kind of test a hundred times. 

Eliza nodded over at the breakfast table.  “Why don’t you girls take a seat? I made instant pot chicken biryani. Unless you get all your nutrients from popcorn.”

“Mom,” Alex said, cringing at the joke. Maggie just chuckled. 

“That’s not far from the truth, Doctor Danvers.”

Maggie gestured to the paperback in her mother’s pocket, the title barely peeking out over the topstitch. “You like Tiptree?”

Eliza’s eyes went wide. “You know what they say. 'Not just SF but a reality check. ’Houston, Houston, Do You Read?’ is just…” she opened the refrigerator, and Alex closed her eyes, praying to Rao that her mother wouldn’t fall into another twenty-minute lecture on how James Tiptree a.k.a. Alice Sheldon a.k.a. Raccoona Sheldon was one of the few early SF writers to have any true understanding of alien biology and culture, and was 'such a breath of fresh air compared to those codgers who wrote all their women as space secretaries.'  The cosmos wasn't a patriarchy. Not most of it, anyway. 

Maggie pulled out a chair and sat down. “Honestly, I’ve only read a few of her stories, but I liked them. There’s that one...about that insectoid race? That was dark.”

“Very,” Eliza said. She put the biryani on the counter and took two plates from the cupboard. “Did you know that was based on a species on Talok? Long winters there. Getting longer still.”

“Really?” Maggie leaned back in surprise. “I always thought they were giant spiders.”

“That’s what she _wanted_ people to think.” Eliza winked and put the biryani in the microwave. “Sheldon was one of those rare writers had an in with aliens long before we were stamping asylum visas. My Roltikonn colleague could tell you a few things about that.”

Alex, now feeling thoroughly doomed, hurried over to help and speed up her mother’s leave-taking. Eliza pushed her gently back toward the table. “Alex. Sit. Join your friend.”

There was a slight pause before that last word and Alex felt her pulse leap in contrast to the sinking feeling in her stomach. When Eliza was curious about someone, it was almost impossible to get rid of her.

"Huh," Maggie said. "Must be strange to read a lot the older stuff. As an alien, I mean. To see what people thought of you before they even knew of your existence."

"Do you like science fiction, Maggie?" Eliza asked, and Maggie leaned forward, folded her hands atop the table. Her expression was hesitant but thoughtful. 

"I can't say I like it. Not the movies so much. But I’m interested in aliens. I thought it might be a good way to acquaint myself more, understand human prejudices against them." 

"Indeed," Eliza said.  She spooned the rice onto the plates. It smelled heavenly after a day of champagne and Twizzlers, Alex thought. 

"Maggie's going into law enforcement," she said, and Eliza gave her a crisp nod of approval. It hit Alex then that her mother was acting the way she did whenever she or Kara brought a boy home--only this time she seemed genuinely impressed.

“And you and Alex work together?” 

“That’s what she said,” Alex muttered, and she could feel Maggie's eyes on her. 

“I run the projectors," Maggie said. She was glancing back and forth between them, aware of Alex's discomfort. 

Eliza took some silverware from the drawer, along with a small stack of paper napkins and passed them to Alex. "Sit," she mouthed.  “At Mr. Henshaw’s theater. All those old machines. That must be a lot of work.”

“Hank’s a good teacher,” Maggie said. “And I enjoy it. I like to fix things."

Eliza turned. "Are you good with doors?”

“Mom?” Alex said. 

Maggie pressed a napkin into her lap and squinted up at Eliza. “Doors?”

“It's just that this house is old,” Eliza said, “and the doors just won’t stay shut. In fact, the one to my study swings open all the time.”

She didn’t look at Alex who kept her eyes down as she sank into a chair next to Maggie. But this was a definitely a first volley. Eliza was guilting her for sneaking into her study while playing the generous parent to a first date. 

"I'm not sure if it's my area, but I'd be happy to take a look," Maggie said. 

"That would be wonderful." Eliza smiled at them warmly. "And no pressure. I just thought it couldn't hurt." She placed the food in front of them and took two bottles of Lagunitas from the refrigerator. “You girls have earned a reward.”

Maggie looked at her in surprise, but Alex answered by snatching the beer from her mother and taking a long swig. She didn't know what felt worse. Anticipating 'the talk' over her logging into her parents' secret government database or the fact that her mother knew, or at least sensed her feelings for Maggie. Was this something she'd picked up on a long time ago? Had it been that obvious when Alex herself had been stumbling into walls of her own making?

Eliza tightened the sash on her robe and yawned, if not theatrically, then pointedly. "I'm turning in, girls. You enjoy yourselves." 

"Goodnight, Doctor Danvers," Maggie said. "And thank you."

"It's Eliza," her mother answered, "and it's a pleasure, Maggie."

Alex wasn't going to look, she wasn't going to crane her neck to watch her mother as she climbed the stairs, but when she did, Eliza was lying in wait. She stopped, mid-step, and mouthed, rather emphatically it seemed--although Alex really couldn't tell with the lights dimmed-- "She's a keeper." 

 


	11. The Lady Vanishes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluffangst

When they finally retired to Alex’s room, the strange energy from the night had dissipated. It was as if Eliza had stamped a veneer of normalcy on the evening. Alex watched as Maggie traced her fingers along the cracked spines of the books in her room. It was kid stuff mostly, _Nancy Drew_ , _Goosebumps_ , _The Wind in the Door_ , childhood favorites that had been pulled from the attic after Kara’s arrival.

 “Those are my sister’s.”

Maggie glanced back. Her eyes were warm, but her hands were folded now as if she was waiting for Alex to say or do something. “She’s out of town?”

“One of those volunteer abroad things, yeah.” Alex was suddenly overwhelmed by a hundred conflicting urges—to make a crack about Kara’s reading tastes, to fall into a ramble about the islands of Costa Rica, to offer Maggie a drink, or to reach out and—

She shoved her hands into her pockets. “You uh, need something to sleep in?”

 “Right,” Maggie said and looked away. “That would be great.”

Alex turned and went to the dresser,  relieved the other girl couldn’t see the blush creeping over her features. She paused and let herself breathe, and then took out her softest T-shirt and a pair of shorts.

“A little big,” she said, passing them to her. “Hope this is okay.”

Maggie smiled, her shyness dissipating as she raised an eyebrow at the logo. “Mathletic Department?”

“I can get you another one,” Alex said, half-serious and Maggie laughed.

“Nerd.”

 “Do you maybe want that scotch?” Alex said. _She_ needed that scotch.

“Sure,” Maggie said. “If it’s okay with your folks.” She put the clothes on the edge of the bed and began tugging up the hem of her shirt. Alex stiffened and turned toward the door. “Not a problem. My Dad offers it to me all the time.”

 As she left the room, she glanced back and caught a glimpse of Maggie’s bare shoulders, that dark hair tumbling over tan and supple skin. She closed the door and leaned against it, heart pounding.

_What is wrong with you?_

Downstairs, she forced down a shot of her father’s Talisker. She’d always balked at the smell when he’d offered it, but it was smoother than she’d expected, the warmth hitting her stomach before the burn even tickled her throat. She felt herself loosen a little, her confidence returning, and poured two more shots into Jeremiah’s prized crystal tumblers. _Looks like something her detective idols might drink from,_ she thought, hoping Maggie would appreciate the gesture.

She found her already asleep on Kara’s bed. She was sprawled atop the blankets, one socked foot hanging comically off the edge, her arms tucked under her head like a vagabond sleeping in the bough of a tree. Alex knelt and gently tugged off her socks.

A lone gull passed over the house, keowing loudly, and Maggie shifted and muttered something in Spanish. Alex caught just a little of it.

“Ros…”

“Rosebud?” Alex whispered, and then felt instantly relieved Maggie hadn’t been awake to hear that one. She flinched again in her sleep, one hand fisting like an infant’s and Alex felt stirred by a sudden protectiveness. She pulled a blanket from her bed and draped it over her, tucking it around her shoulders. Then, without thinking, she reached down and brushed a lock of hair from Maggie’s cheek, her fingers tingling at the contact. It was the drink, she told herself. All that adventure. But she knew she wouldn’t sleep that night.

#

She woke late in the morning to the sound of laughter. Maggie was downstairs, already showered and dressed, and sitting before a half-eaten spread of pancakes and fruit.

 “Maggie’s a dear, Alex,” Eliza said, taking a coffee cup from the cupboard. “I was going to wake you, but she insisted I let you sleep. She’s been telling me how hard you’ve been working.”

“Hey, Danvers,” Maggie said, giving her a broad grin.

Alex could only manage a “yeah?” She rubbed her eyes and stared blearily at the miracle in front of her. In the morning sunlight, Maggie seemed to glow, her sharper edges softening into something almost angelic.

“She’s fixed the door to the study,” Eliza continued, “ _and_ the bathroom. No more swinging open when you’re indisposed, Alex.”

“Mom, you know that was Kar-“ Alex said, before stopping herself. The locks on the doors were old, but Kara always took revenge whenever Alex managed to get the bathroom first. She’d use her breath to push it open, chortling when she heard a half-dressed Alex yelp in protest. Maggie gave her a puzzled look, but Alex shrugged and pulled at a lock of hair. “You sleep okay?”

Maggie took the coffee cup from Eliza and started to pour some for her. “Yeah. Thanks. If I’m not crashing at the theater, my aunt’s working a late shift. I think I sleep better when someone’s around.”

There was something in her tone that made her wonder if she’d meant her. _Stop reading into it_ , she thought.

“Good stuff,” Maggie said, passing Alex the cup.

 “Less acidic,” Eliza said. “Jeremiah and I spent so much time jacked up on instant or stuff from the vending machines when we were in school, that this...” She gestured to a row of coffee paraphernalia—a toddy cold brew, an Italian stovetop espresso pot, a wooden grinder with a copper handle. “...became compulsory once we were out.”

“You could start a headshop,” Alex said.

Jeremiah had always been a foodie. Alex liked that about him, how he took pleasure in introducing Kara to new things. Krypton had a “global unified cuisine”-- whatever that meant--and she’d begun her Earth life as a fairly unadventurous eater. But when it came to coffee, he was downright insufferable, insisting on hand grinding the beans--even on school days--and talking up notes of caramel and Burburrian helmspice—an alien hybrid bean that had taken the Pacific Northwest by storm. Alex, who simply needed caffeine to stay awake, had rebelled with a jar of Nescafe.

“It’s good enough for the French,” she’d said.

“You won’t say that when you’re at Stanford,” he responded.

But when she took a sip, she felt a memory stir inside her. Maggie hadn’t even asked, had somehow known she liked it black, and there was something natural about the way she’d poured it for her: an intimate muscle memory, as if it had always been their routine.

#

Later, after she’d showered and dressed, she took Maggie down to the old Keeler shipwreck. The ship had gone aground during a storm in the 1920s, and its rusted, barnacle-dappled hulk had become a landmark over the years, its spine twinning the inverted horseshoe of Sparrow rock. The tide was out and they tugged off their sneakers, placing them in the narrow pocket of its shale wall. Alex said nothing about the night before, the conversation Maggie had promised to continue, for Maggie was quiet. She seemed to be soaking in the fresh air and the sun, and Alex didn’t want to interrupt that peace.

When they got to the tidepools, Maggie broke the silence. “You’ve got a great Mom, Alex.”

Alex laughed. “Well, she makes a good impression.”

Maggie tilted her head at her, “Gift horses, right?” And Alex felt a stab of remorse. “I shouldn't complain.”

Maggie shrugged. “All kids do.” She bent and picked up an agate, held it up to the light. Is that how she saw her? As a kid? 

“Do you ever see yours?” she asked.

Maggie hurled the stone absently into the waves. “Not often and usually from a distance. Unless there was a form that needed signing or a meeting with a school counselor. Another reason to keep my grades up.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex said, she stole a glance at Maggie. The other girl’s expression was calm but distant.

 “So am I. But the alternative is worse.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe it isn’t my place to say, but if you were to come out to your mom, I bet she’d be okay with it.”

Alex pressed a hand instinctively to the back of her neck. She wasn’t ready for this. But Maggie was only speaking in the hypothetical. “She would. I-I think. If that were the case.”

Maggie hopped over a tide pool and then turned and held out her hand. Alex hesitated. She didn’t need help. She was more at home here than Maggie likely was in that theater, but she wanted the reassurance, the feel of that thing that was growing between them. Maggie helped her over the pool and then the two of them took a seat on a smooth section of shale. They let their feet dip into the water, watched the sand swirl as the sculpins flitted away in search of cover.

 “You see,” Maggie said. “Mine won’t. So…” She fingered a loose bit of shell. “It was ripping off the Band-Aid. It would have been worse if I was at home, living with that shame and contempt. It’d be a slow poisoning, like in _The Two Mrs. Carrolls_.”

 “What?”

Maggie smiled, her tone lightening. “I’ll show it to you some time.”

 Alex chuckled. “You know more about old movies than Robert Osborne.”

Maggie shook her head. “After my parents kicked me out, I started to think about why they’d reacted that way. Why I’d been so ill-prepared. There was the church, that climate, it was like I didn’t have a model for how to be in the world.” She scoffed. “A Valentine’s card. I didn’t even like Valentine’s Day. I was just aping the straights.”

She kicked at the water a little. “When I started working at the theater, J’onn let me watch everything, read everything, and that’s when I learned about the Hays code. About how much has been erased.”

“Yeah?” Alex said and wanted to hit herself. All she could do was mutter vague agreement when the question still burned inside her. She took in a breath, her nails digging into the wet stone. “How did you know?”  

Maggie glanced at her, bewildered by the sudden seriousness in her tone. Her eyes sharpened and then softened with comprehension. It was too much. Alex looked back down at the water.

“Know what?”

 “I mean…” Alex lifted her hand, one finger out as if she was trying to pinpoint the words in front of her. “How did you know you were--that you liked girls-women?”

Alex’s eyes stayed on the rippling water, on the bits of coral and softened glass that caught the sunlight. She listened to the rustle of Maggie’s shirt as she shifted, saw the small splash as Maggie dropped the shell into the water and placed her free hand on hers.

 “Danv-"

A gust of laughter cut her off, and Maggie’s hand stiffened. The two of them lifted their gaze to confront two figures rounding the corner, laughing as they kicked up the water. The sunlight was slicing through the rock and Alex squinted as she tried to make out the intruders. A girl running backward. A taller boy chasing her over the wet sand.

Vickie.

And Tramer.

 “Oh my god,” Alex said, just as the two, laughing and out of breath, caught sight of them. They halted abruptly, Tramer like a dog skidding before a piece of driftwood. Their hands touched instinctively and just as quickly pulled apart.

“Alex?” Vickie said, her voice faint.

Alex didn’t respond. She felt a coldness sink into her stomach.  

“Knew he was a dick,” Maggie whispered. 

Alex felt the other girl’s thumb stroking the back of her hand, grounding her. 

 “Hi, Vicks,” she said.

“This is a surprise,” Vickie said, her tone was flat, and she looked like she was going to double over and puke right there in the sand.

“What are you doing here?” Tramer said.

Alex’s eyes narrowing in disbelief.  “I live here, Ben. And this isn’t a private beach. Or did your Dad pull some strings with the city council?”

 “Hey,” Tramer said. “There’s no need to be like-”

“Oh, fuck you.” Alex sneered and looked away. She couldn’t bear to look at Tramer’s slack mouth, those grey eyes, the color of a developer’s quarry.

“I’m sorry, Alex,” Vickie said. She was almost crying now, and Alex felt guilt mingling with the sting of betrayal. Why hadn’t Vickie told her? Had Alex known, she would have hooked Tramer to a crane and dropped him in the Donahue’s yard.

“It’s okay, Vicks,” she said. “It’s really okay.”

She raised her hand and forced herself to look at her friend. Maggie had let go of her hand, but before Alex felt the absence, she felt her arm around her shoulders, the warmth and reassurance of her body pressed close. There was no need to cry, to get upset over what she’d never wanted in the first place.

“We should go,” Tramer said, his voice clipped.

 “Yeah,” Vickie said. “Bye, Lex.”

The two of them, now feet apart, turned around and walked quickly back the way they had come. Maggie held onto Alex until they were out of sight, and even after they had rounded the cliffside, said nothing. Just waited until she could catch her breath.

“Well, that was a shit show.”

 “You made a good call there, Danvers.”

“Yeah?” Alex heard her voice break.

“You want to go back?”

 The thought of it sent a flush of anger through her. Not at Vickie, or Tramer, but at herself. At the muddle she’d managed to make of her young life. Eliza’s words came back to her. _Be thankful that you know when something isn’t for you._

 “Hey, Alex?”

 “You know,” Alex said, turning to face her. “Maybe your not having a model? Maybe that’s a good thing.”

“I don’t--”

Alex pushed herself up and hopped back over the pool. She didn’t want to forgo Maggie’s proximity, but she needed to move, to get it out. “I mean, I-” she started to pace. “I’ve been trying. I-I tried. I went out with a guy, with a few.” The words were coming despite herself. “I tried to be excited about being asked to a dance, about receiving a bouquet or a card and I…” Her voice trailed off. “I just couldn’t. It was always, always a disappointment.”  


Maggie had risen to follow her. She closed the space between them and put her hands gently on Alex's wrists.  

“It’s like a cargo cult, you know?" Alex said. "You light the torches, keep waving them at the sky, hoping those planes will come in, but they don’t really ever do. Do they?”

“No.” Maggie’s voice was soft, almost inaudible. She was shaking her head slowly as if she was trying to talk herself down from something.

 “I wish,” Alex said, her heart pounding. Their eyes locked.  “I wish you’d given me that card.”

She felt herself lighten as the words fell out, felt her body start to shake. Maggie’s fingers were brushing back her hair, her other hand was circling her waist.

“I’m sorry,” Alex said, “I think-”

“Don’t.”

Alex dipped her head. “Don’t what?”

“Think,” Maggie said before pulling her into a kiss. Alex heard a whimper escape her as they connected, felt a surge of heat as their lips met again and again. She was dizzy, felt herself falling into a tangle of breath and longing as she pulled Maggie closer. The other girl’s hands were in her hair, at her back, her body a steadying, wondrous presence. So she let herself tumble into Maggie’s embrace, into a world of shimmer and smoke, of shadow and light and the old melody that lifted around them. 

_I've lost all ambition for worldly acclaim, I just want to be the one you love_

They pulled apart, catching their breath, and Alex opened her eyes to a new world, to the gowns and nouveau décor, to the music and the people whirling gracefully around them.

“Maggie?” she whispered, and Maggie’s eyes, once soft, grew wide with apprehension. Alex felt the blood rush to her head, her vision blurring, and they were out again, standing in the sunlight, the waves crashing around them.

Maggie pressed her forehead to Alex’s. “You were there. You went down with me.”

Alex nodded, her hand stroking Maggie’s cheek. “I think so.” A smile tugged at her, but Maggie wasn’t smiling.

Alex bent to kiss her again and Maggie leaned into it, but her eyes were shut tightly and she pulled back, her hands now firm on Alex's shoulders. She pushed her away. Gently.

“I didn’t expect this,” she said.

“Neither did I,” Alex said. “Was it-”

“I can’t,” Maggie’s eyes looked haunted now. “It’s too dangerous. You’re young.“

“Maggie?” Alex took a step forward. “I'm only two years younger than you. For the first time in my life, I know what I want. Really. It's okay. I-”

But Maggie was already backing away. “Look, I care about you, Danvers. A lot. Which is why I can’t do this.”

Alex opened her mouth to reply as she watched Maggie hurry across the sand. She called out once, a cry really, but the wind caught her voice and hurled it back into the waves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm modeling this Jeremiah after the one in the Rebirth comics. He's a delight and a total foodie. Alex deserves a better Dad. Or at least a more consistent Dad story.


	12. Polite Fictions

  
“Alex?”

Eliza’s voice rang from the study, still cheerful, still unaware that everything had fallen apart. Alex wished she could step into that before place when Maggie was still there and the day was still so full of hope. Instead, her mother's next question set her even more adrift in the present.

“Did Maggie leave?” 

“She had to go,” Alex said, hearing that last word halt in her throat. 

Eliza didn’t seem to notice. She seemed perturbed by something as she came out to greet her, one hand loosening the band that held her hair back as she worked. “That’s good I guess. I need to speak with you.” 

Her voice had lowered and Alex felt a twinge of relief even as her chest began to constrict, even as her mouth twisted into that defensive half sneer that emerged whenever she was in for it. “It's not the time, Mom.” She noted the petulance in her tone. But anything was better than crying. 

Eliza shook out her hair and placed the band in the pocket of her cardigan. “You can decide that time when you haven’t hacked into the database at my lab. At least…I hope it was you.”

Alex froze. Answering that question meant more of them, which would lead to her breaking her promise to J’onn. He would sense her betrayal the moment she stepped into The Orpheum if not sooner. And Maggie would be lost to her for good. 

“Alex, I’m really not angry. It's just that some things have hap-”

Eliza’s tone softened and that was all it took. Alex burst into tears. She stood there, chest heaving and shoulders slumped, feeling equal parts stupid and shattered. Eliza pressed her hands to Alex's cheeks, her eyes wide with concern.

"What is it?”

“I’m sorry,” Alex said. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and felt Eliza’s arm slip around her shoulders as she pushed her gently toward the sofa. They sat in silence for a long minute as she steadied her breathing. Then, Eliza leaned over and pushed the box of tissues across the table.

“Why did you do it?”

“I was only-” An idea seized her.  “You lied to me about Kara. About where she is.”

She wasn’t being dishonest. Not really. She was just replacing one truth with another, and she managed to say it with such genuine resentment she surprised even herself. 

“I see,” Eliza said. Then. “Is that it?”

“You don’t have to lie,” Alex said. "You keep telling me how I need to be responsible, but how can I when you don't even trust me?"

That was laying it on thick, she realized, and for a moment, she worried that Eliza's all-powerful bullshit meter would click into action. But her mother merely folded her hands in her lap, and spoke slowly, cautiously, as if trying to bargain with a perp. “Your father and I realize that, Alex. But we’d be in serious breach of security protocol if we revealed your sister's whereabouts. Not just under our own laws, but those of...the other places. It’s a matter of polite fiction. I’d hoped you would have understood that by now.”

“Polite fiction,” Alex said. Hadn’t that been why Maggie’s parents had thrown her out? To maintain the fiction of ‘normalcy’ in a conservative town? And wasn’t that the very thing the Hays Code had enforced so that people like Maggie—like herself—would have nowhere to see themselves in the world? 

“You gave me a start,” Eliza said. “But Alex, that’s not what’s really bothering you, is it?” 

Alex wiped her eyes and took in a shuddering breath. Was she ready for this? Now?

“I saw Tramer on the beach this morning. With Vickie.”

Another polite fiction. One Eliza wasn’t buying. Her mother leaned back into the sofa, her expression mildly bemused. "Oh?" 

“The thing is,” Alex said. “I-I don’t even like Tramer.” 

 “I’d assumed as much.”

 “I’m gay, Mom.”

Alex looked away as the words tumbled out, focused on the worn edge of the driftwood coffee table, on her own hands that were closing tightly into fists. Anything but her mother who said nothing and for a long time didn’t move. 

“I know,” Eliza said finally. 

Alex jerked her head up. “You  _know_?”

“Well..." Eliza pulled at a stray thread in the upholstery. “I suppose the more accurate word is guessed.”

Alex blinked at her, remembering with a sudden, merciless clarity how Eliza had once scolded her for dawdling over Kara’s ice cream order at Sidewinder’s. She’d been tongue-tied by the girl with the scoop and found herself staring, her cone dripping onto the sleeve of her shirt. Then there was that time—on laughing gas—when she’d declared her undying love for Doctor Ryerson. “You’re so beautiful!” she’d said. "Why the hell aren’t you on TV?”  Ryerson had cleared her throat and pointed a mirror toward her tonsils. Alex felt her face, already blotchy with tears, go a deeper shade of red. Had her parents just been lying in wait all those years? Waiting for her to figure it out?

 “It wasn’t anything in particular," Eliza said. "It was more that I worried about you-” 

Alex winced. "It's not the end of the world, Mom." 

Eliza raised her hand to stop her. “Not because of your being gay, Alex, but because nothing really seemed to make you happy.” She took a breath. “This morning…you looked happy.”

Alex closed her eyes. “I was.”

“Is it Vickie?”

Alex shook her head. The tears started again and Eliza reached over and stroked her hair. She could swear her mother whispered a 'thank god' as she did.

“It’s Maggie,” Alex said. “I thought she liked me, and then we-” She couldn’t talk about the kissing, not with her mother just yet. “When I told her how I felt, she bolted.”

“Oh, Sweetie,” Eliza said. 

“I don’t know what I did.”

“Alex, sometimes when people know what they really want, it frightens them. If Maggie got scared then it’s a pretty fair sign that what she feels for you is real.”

“You think so?” She took a tissue from the box and dabbed at her face. 

“Yeah,” Eliza said. “I do.” She gave Alex’s shoulder a squeeze and stood up. “It’s your decision to make, but if your old mother’s opinion is anything to go by, Maggie is definitely worth fighting for.”

“I think so too,” Alex said.

“I’m glad you told me,” Eliza said. Her voice was warm, but she seemed distracted. “Now I’ve got a few things to see to, but why don’t you and I head to National City next week? Make a day of it and talk, okay?"

“Sure,” Alex said. "I'd like that."

Later, she sat out on the widow’s walk, arms wrapped around her knees. A few constellations were asserting themselves in the hazy twilight, faint lights in the cloud cover hanging over the sea.

Her world had shifted twice that afternoon. Maggie had kissed her, and she had come out to her mother. But surprisingly, the way she viewed Eliza had been the thing that had changed the most. Alex had always been gay, even if she took a long time to realize it, but her mother wasn't as distant or as unattuned to her as she'd thought. She knew, at least intuitively, that Eliza's emotional distance and rigidity were how she managed the heavy load of work and family, of an alien adoptee and a husband whose job meant he was almost invariably absent. But it always made her feel as if she was less of a daughter and more of a plan Eliza was having trouble putting into effect. But she _had_ seen her, maybe even more clearly than Alex had seen herself. It was reassuring, at least in those moments before she remembered what had prompted their heart-to-heart. She reached up and touched her lips, felt a shudder go through her as she remembered the feel of Maggie’s mouth, of the other girl's hands on her body. Some part of her was still coming down from the high of it. 

_You’re young. It’s too dangerous._

_Young._

Maggie was only nineteen, albeit deservedly world-wearier. But that was from hard experience, not chronological age.  And while J’onn’s being a Martian meant he was centuries old, she was certain Maggie hadn’t lied to her about being human. She thought about Kara, how she’d spent twenty-four years in stasis before arriving on Earth. And about Clark, whose boyhood friend from Daxam had been forced into the Phantom Zone due to some rare disease. But Maggie had only been in Midvale for five years. None of what she’d said made sense. 

 “Alex?”

She bolted from her chair, allowing herself an instant of hope until the name sounded again. 

“Lex? It’s me.”

Reluctantly, she leaned over the parapet and saw Vickie peering up at her, her face drawn and pale in the light from the porch. She stepped further into it. Alone.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You kind of did that earlier,” Alex said.

 “I know.” Vickie worried her lip. “Can we talk?” 

Her expression was vulnerable, almost pleading, and Alex’s felt that old weakness, one she knew now had been longing, stir inside her. 

“Just a sec,” she said. “I’ll come down.”

#

They were in the porch swing, a few feet apart and a pint of Rocky Road between them. Alex had intended it as a peace offering. She wanted Vickie to know she was okay. That there were no hard feelings over Tramer. Less an act of forgiveness on her part than one of reassurance. She was out now. There’d be no more pretending.

But Vickie stayed nervous and hesitant. She was hunched over,  tracing the tips of her sandals over the chipped wooden floorboards. 

 “I just needed to explain,” she said. Her voice was soft and full of remorse. “Hear me out and I’ll go.”

“I meant what I said earlier, Vick. I don’t care about any of that.”

Vickie gave her a doubtful glance. “He’s nice to me, Alex, and I never get the nice ones.”

Alex nodded. “That’s because you let the bad ones walk all over you. I've never understood that. I mean, you’re always so tough with me.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. Because you _always_ get the good guys. Tim Cho or Kevin Larchmont. They’re always tripping over you, and you-” Vickie threw up her hands. “You’re always so effing oblivious.”

“Am I?” She hadn’t meant it as a challenge. It was the only way to keep herself from telling Vickie that she’d likely been the reason for it. She’d read in one of her mother’s alien science journals that Coluans saw consciousness as a cartoonish computer/user interface that allowed sentience to act in the world. What people saw of themselves was akin to funhouse mirrors, caricatures. Some improved on the source material, others were twisted and comical. But no one ever _really_ saw a clear version of a self.

Vickie looked at her in disbelief. “Isn't anyone good enough for you?”

“Not if it's a guy.” Alex met her eyes. “Not in that way.”

Vickie sighed and leaned her head back. “You know, I did kind of wonder about that.”

 “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Alex said, but she laughed a little. 

Vickie squinted at her. “Kinda? Yeah.”

Alex folded her arms. “When?”

Vickie chuckled and Alex felt herself grow lighter. “Oh, come on! It was obvious. Like when Maria Figueres danced up on you in  _Guys and Dolls_  and you backed right off of the stage.”

 “I was wearing my Dad’s shoes!" 

“See?”

“They didn’t have traction.”

Vickie gave Alex that sideways grin that always sent the color to her cheeks. “Wait! Are you and that girl-”

Alex shook her head.  “No.”

“But you like her.”

Alex folded her arms. “Maybe.”

“So this is a project then,” Vickie said. "Tell me this is a project."

'Project' was their code for scheming over the guys they liked at school. But for the first time in her life, Alex didn’t feel like she was play-acting. “She’s more than that,” Alex said.

“Okay, I get it,” Vickie said. “This is serious. But you’ve got to let me help.” She picked up the pint of ice cream and pulled off the top.

“You sure you want to get involved?”

Vickie tutted. “Of course. Can’t have you breaking the fourth wall again. Or your neck. Or your ankle.”

Alex paused at Vickie’s words. _The fourth wall._ That was it. A way back. A way to sort out what had happened on that beach. What was happening at the theater. She passed Vickie a spoon. “Would it be okay if you canceled your plans with Tramer tonight?”

 Vickie shrugged and jammed the spoon into the ice cream. It had melted, so she stirred it around a bit. Took a bite. “He can wait,” she said. 

“Because I was thinking," Alex said. "Maybe you and I can have one of our all-night movie marathons.”

Vickie broke out into a grin. “You serious?”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “And I get to pick. No complaining or falling asleep. I need you to help me find something. ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It gave me great pleasure to retcon the Mon-El storyline back to its comic book origins.


	13. The Kid

“Wait. Roll that back again,” Alex said.

Vickie pointed the remote at the screen, then stopped, shook her head, and aimed it at ‘the audio-visual thingie’ in Alex’s lap. They’d nabbed the device from Jeremiah’s study, and Alex told Vickie he used it for deep space spectroscopy. What she hadn’t revealed was that the thingie -- a cube with enough buttons, knobs, and ancillary parts to require multiple users— was of alien design, invented for use by the Tiklikumtar monks in their observatories at the Garibar nebula. Those monks had four arms and eleven finger-ish digits.

They’d foregone the local video store, opting for the twenty-minute drive to _Movie Madhouse_ , a repository for everything from the silent era to Todd Haynes’  _Superstar_  and the unaired pilot of  _Buffy_. Alex had marveled at the audacity when she’d spotted them on display, as if Richard Carpenter and Joss Whedon had granted their seals of approval. During the drive there, she’d drawn up a list from a book J’onn had given her about pre-Code films. 'Officially' _Thirteen Women_ was of that era, even if it had had the misfortune to go under the knife.

“You’re getting the hang of it,” Alex said.  They’d been up all night, with only a few breaks to pee or call in a pizza order, but Vickie was still wired.

“Just like dialing a rotary phone.” She nodded coolly and did a slow rewind of the black and white street scene.

The film was a little-known Dorothy Arzner picture called  _A Follies Duet._ Alex hadn’t seen much of her work, other than a few clips from  _Dance, Girl, Dance,_ but she had seen Maggie’s eyes light up when she spoke of her. She’d gone on and on about how Arzner was one of the few women directors at the time, and how she was openly queer and wore suits on the set. “An outlier when she shouldn’t have been,” Maggie had told her. Women— everyone from Zora Neal Hurston to Alice Guy-Blaché and Esther Eng, miraculously rediscovered when some stills turned up in a San Francisco skip-- had been there from the beginning. It should have stayed that way. 

 “Pan left and enhance by 40 percent.”

“This is some  _Bladerunner_ level tech, Lex,” Vickie said. 

“Isn’t it?” Alex grinned at her, then started as the cube whirred and clicked. “Whoa, whoa. Right there.”

Vickie stopped the image, then shifted down to the bottom corner of the frame, zooming in on the steps of a brownstone. Only it wasn’t much of a brownstone but rather a hastily cobbled together set-piece. A rusty Autoped scooter was propped against the steps to mask the ersatz.

Alex bent closer to the screen, her eyes resting on the top step. It had been sloppily painted-over, some gravel mixed in to mimic a rough brick facade, but the clear outline of a stencil showed through the coat.

“See that?” Alex said.

“The steps?”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “Looks like they were built out of old Tomelty orange crates. My Mom still uses those for her tomato plants.”

 Vickie leaned back and nodded in appreciation. “Fake as effing eff, Lex. You’re good.”

Alex grabbed a pencil and marked down the time. 1:03.17. “Snap that, will you?”

Alex wasn’t a fraction as versed in cinema as Maggie or J’onn or Winn, but she did have one advantage—a skill for spotting inauthenticity. She had honed it on years of cynical punk rock posturing, chuckling, not unmaliciously, while Kara cowered beneath Nana Diedre’s afghan during the terrible Claymation scenes in  _Basketcase_  or the atrocious hilarity of  _Troll II_. 

She felt a stab of shame now when she remembered how she’d teased her. “How can you even take this seriously, Kara? It’s Jell-O. You travel thousands of light years and _this_ is what scares you?”

Kara had tugged that afghan higher over her head. “You have not seen what I have seen, Alex. There are things like that out there.”

The trash cinema antagonism of her sister came to an end when Alex brought home a Betamax copy of _Mac and Me_ and sent Eliza into a fury. She accused Alex of exposing Kara to demeaning and harmful stereotypes. 

“It’s not like she thinks those things are  _her,_  Mom,” Alex said. “It’s just a dumb movie.”

Even then, she knew it was a weak defense. And, in a rare bout of vindictive mischief, Kara broke in to ask Eliza for McDonald's and a six-pack of Coke. That was that. Eliza gave Kara dominion over the remote and the rental card for a month. Four weekends of nothing but the Dylans and the Dermots and Matthew Perry failing to jumpstart a screen career. Alex stayed in her room and listened to  _The Violent Femmes._

At least shitty horror flicks were open about their lies and ineptitude. They were completely transparent on that front, while all Kara would get from her romcoms was hurt when those all those ‘nice’ guys failed to appear. But she understood now, especially after what Maggie had taught her, why Eliza had been so angry. Even as she discovered the value in the “trash” on which, according to her parents, she’d “wasted hours of her life.” It was a means to help J’onn stop the disturbances at The Orpheum, and maybe win back Maggie’s trust.

She couldn’t say love. Not yet. Love was something new and real, and as scary as that train pulling into the station at La Ciotat, the flicker of light and shadow that sent the first film audience running for the exits. And Alex didn’t want to run.

By ten am, Vickie was snoring lightly, her head crooked against the edge of Kara’s bed. Alex hoisted her onto the mattress and covered her with a blanket. Then she transferred the clips to a flash drive before setting the alarm for noon. When she got up to shower, Vickie was still asleep and it was time for her next shift.

“I’ve got to go,” she said. “But please stay and raid the refrigerator. My Mom will be happy for the company.”

  
Vickie opened one eye and rolled over onto her stomach, bunching up the pillow into her arms.  “I’ll say hi to Tramer for you.”

“Tell him I say you’re a way better movie date,” Alex said, and then, in a move that surprised her, bent to give her friend a chaste kiss on the forehead.

Vickie looked up at her and grinned. “Aren’t I? Good luck today, Lex. With her."

#

It was over an hour before opening and the lobby was almost deserted, save Mona, who was counting cups behind the concession stand. She looked up, and screwed up her face, as if Alex had ruined her momentum.

 “Where is everybody?” Alex said, almost afraid to ask. 

“In the reel room being morose,” Mona said.

Alex walked over to the concessions stand and felt her stomach growl. She should have taken her own advice before leaving the house. She took a box of peanut M&Ms from the counter. “Put it on my tab.”

“No need,” Mona said. “You’re going to need the sugar with that crowd.”

She tore absently at the box as she made her way to the reel room, stopping for a moment to gaze up at the ceiling murals. Theda Bara grimaced down at her, as if to say, “if you’re dumb enough to go in there…”

 _Says you._ Alex glared back and popped some candy in her mouth and winced as she caught a hard M&M on her incisor. She vowed never to backtalk Theda again.

She reached the reel room, but halted as she was pulled on the door. J’onn’s voice, strained and irritable, slipped through the opening.

“We’ve gone over this. The only way is to go to the source, the Amkh’rot Sh’iiar, which would risk, if not a rift in reality itself, then certainly some long-term consequences not seen since-”

“Fourteen years of gimlets and shitty blondes,” Maggie said. Alex felt her chest tighten at the sound of her voice. “And being stared at constantly for wearing pants. You don’t need to remind me.  I’m not going back.” 

 _Back to where?_ What were they talking about?

“Of course, I didn’t mean to-”

She heard Maggie’s shoes scuffing against the carpet. She was pacing, the way she did when she was mad or trying to suss out a problem with one of the machines.

 “Then why bring it up? You know I fucking can’t do that again. I can’t-”

Winn cut in. “That’s quite a potty mouth, Pan,”

Maggie laughed, but her tone was hostile.  “Wanna go to Neverland, Schott? I’ll feed you to the crock myself.”

“I-um-can cartoons eat?”

“Want to find out?”

“No.”

There was a long silence. Alex’s arm had begun to ache and sweat was loosening her hold on the handle. She leaned in closer, the muscles in her arm straining to hold the door in place.

“Listen. I didn’t want to increase anyone’s worry, but you both should know this. I got word that Cyrus Harlan and his cronies with the Wescott development are prodding City Council to pursue eminent domain, under the guise of building an ‘arts center.’ Here.”

“But The Orpheum _is_ an arts center. Of a sort,” Winn said. “Place is a verified historical landmark.”

 “Look what happened to _Acres of Books_.”

Alex knew that name. It was a bookstore in Long Beach, a winding, ramshackle haven of titles, jammed into shelves that loomed over her like the trees in _The Wizard of Oz_. Her parents had taken her there as a kid and she’d gotten lost. But she’d liked the smell and that her allowance went further and to far more interesting places than the _Borders_ at the Mall. After it was demolished, Alex saw it come to life once more in scene from _The Jane Austen Book Club, a_ slightly more tolerable rom-com, to be sure. But it had made her a little sad.

 “I say we go with reenactment,” Winn said. “I can build models, a makeshift set and we could use digital to smooth out the rough spots before transferring it to film.”

“No go,” Maggie said. 

“Why not?” 

“Because…” and she paused. “That’s like a cargo cult.”

Alex’s heart stopped. It felt as if Maggie was addressing her directly, echoing her words from the day before.

“Doesn’t work unless you believe.”

Maggie’s voice dropped as she said that last word and Alex remembered what Eliza had said about people being frightened when their feelings were real. Was that why Alex had gone under with her? Had it been her belief in Maggie or Maggie’s belief in her?

She took in a deep breath and yanked open the door.

J’onn and Winn jerked around in surprise, but Alex’s eyes were on Maggie. The darker girl took a step back, most of her obscured by the two men, but Alex saw enough. She saw Maggie stiffen and fold her arms and felt her insides crumple like paper.

 “H-hey,” she said. Her voice broke a little. “Mona said you were up here, so…”

J’onn was suddenly closer, peering at her with no small amount of concern. “Are you all right, Alex?”

“You look like a wreck,” Winn said.

Alex felt her face go hot. “I was up all night. Prepping for the ACT, but I’m good. I’m young. Don’t need as much sleep.” She shot Maggie a look and J’onn chuckled, but Maggie looked away, gathered herself up more tightly.

 _Idiot_ , Alex thought. _You’ve just proved her point._

She removed the flash drive from her pocket and straightened. “I think there might be another way to restore those films. As in _really_ restore them.”

Maggie glanced at the flash drive in Alex’s palm. The corner of her lip quivered slightly, but Alex couldn’t tell if it was anger or uncertainty or both.

“Is there something you girls need to discuss?” J’onn said.

“Nope,” Maggie said, and Alex suddenly felt heavy and agreed all the more vehemently in response.

“Not us, J’onn. You said the excised parts of _Thirteen Women_ were destroyed.”

“Like so many others,” J’onn said. “They didn’t think movies were  something to be saved back then.”

“Then,” and Alex steadied herself and looked at Maggie. “Why not go back in and get them?”

Maggie blinked at her, astonished. Then her face hardened and she slumped and sighed as if forcing herself to be delicate. The words sounded harsh. “Because it’s not the same world, kid. It’s the world that the audience sees.”

 _Kid_. There it was again. As if Maggie was trying to hammer it into her head. She lifted her head. “I’m a little shocked to hear that from a would-be detective. You might want to take a closer look.”

Maggie’s eyes were daggers and J’onn took a step forward, put a hand on Alex's shoulder.

“Alex, I think you should get to the point.”

“Okay,” Alex said. "Okay." She looked away. She felt stupid for responding like that, but Maggie’s kid-glove treatment had been far from gentle. "Just let me..." She nodded over at his desk, atop which sat a computer and a high-resolution monitor. “Let me borrow that.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of these titles are made up, except Dance, Girl, Dance. There was a little section with Vickie comparing Fredric March in Merrily We Go to Hell, Arzner's very bleak look at heterosexual romance, to her alcoholic father. I thought it took away from the scene but might reference it in a later chapter. Movie Madhouse is based on Portland's Movie Madness, which was how I first saw the unaired pilot and Superstar. More definitely on the way tomorrow or the next day. Chapter just needs a final polish. Thanks for reading!


	14. Backstage Secrets

Maggie remained agonizingly quiet but stayed as J’onn, Winn, and at the last minute, Mona gathered around Alex at the monitor. They were grim and exhausted and out of ideas, and Alex felt as if she was in one of those movies where George Kennedy and a few dour generals did battle against an air traffic disaster or a swarm of homicidal bees. J’onn had one of those old pieced-together computers from the nineties, upgraded, and like Jeremiah’s viewing device, accompanied by a dozen or so futuristic add-ons. Complicated initially, but even on this, the footage was sharp enough to make her point. .

“Here at exactly 42 minutes in, we’ve got what looks to be a boom mic swiping the feather on this lady’s hat. And here, at an hour and thirty, you can see the RKO catering truck right behind this Venetian villa.”

“Arzner had a lot less to work with,” Maggie said, and Alex ventured a glance back, saw less challenge than a hard-earned appreciation. Alex had done her homework.

“Heard it was because she was a woman or something,” Alex said. She offered a sly smile. Maggie didn’t return it, but she nodded a little in response.

“That, too.”

Alex turned back to the monitor, her cheeks warming. _Don’t read into it._

“This is all fascinating, Alex,” J’onn said. “And I mean no impatience, but where does it lead?”

Alex froze the frame and spun around in her seat, causing Winn to stumble back to avoid being kicked. She leaned back in the chair and forced herself into a semblance of relaxed calm.“ All of these scenes were shot on the Radio Pictures lot from ‘31 to ‘32, all during times _Thirteen Women_ was either in post-production or being screened for test audiences.”

“Which means,” Winn said.

“Which means the original full-length film is still somewhere on the lot.”

The four of them stood there, not quite comprehending. Winn leaned into his hand and coughed theatrically. “I uh, hate to put a damper on things, Alex, but Forty Acre Studios is long gone.” He glanced at J’onn and shrugged. “I mean, Paramount’s still around, but I kind of doubt you’re going to find a bunch of old film canisters just lying around, even if you had access. 

"And a bulldozer," Mona added. "And Indiana Jones at your side.”

“She doesn’t mean that,” Maggie said. Their eyes met briefly. “She means if I drop.”

Alex gripped the arms of J’onn’s chair and pushed herself up. “That’s exactly it. Break the fourth wall from inside.”

“But,” Mona said. “Isn’t the world still a fiction?”

“Yeah, it’s not like she’s going to see Gloria Swanson traipsing by with Cecille B. DeMille,” Winn said.

“Not exactly,” J’onn held up a finger to silence their objections. “They’re different, partially created from imagination, but as real as anything you find in this universe.”

Alex glanced up at Maggie, and for an instant, felt her confidence slip away. But Maggie’s gaze held something else under that veneer of tired disinterest. There was hope there, too. Hope that Alex did have an answer. Hope that maybe Alex was worth facing her fears. So Alex grabbed her confidence by the collar and let that cowardly bastard run in place. She turned and flipped to the image of a floppy hatted clapper boy in a Western saloon assembled from plywood and sugar glass. “If the artifice is that apparent in the ‘fiction’ then it would make sense that these rough spots would act as doorways into the ‘real’ world behind the scenes.

Winn clasped his hands together, his cynicism dissipating. “So it would be like time travel, but not time travel. Sort of.”

“Yes,” J’onn said. “But it would be a version of the lot. Not the one in our actual past, but the lot and therefore a very close semblance of the RKO Studios of the era.”

“An-and,” he was getting excited. “Maggie could just mosey off and grab the full reel from storage. Or wherever they kept the rushes.” He turned to Maggie, made a pleading motion with his hands. “Could you get _The Magnificent Ambersons_ before they screen it for those idiots in Pomona?”

“Almost a decade too early,” Maggie said, the hope had seeped into her voice now and Alex suppressed a smile. She was considering it. Her idea.

“But maybe after, you could go back. We could find a spot in what’s left of Amb-“

“Maggie is righting a past wrong, Winn,” J’onn said. “Helping someone whose story couldn’t be told. Orson Welles was profligate and easily distracted. If he hadn’t been flitting about with Delores del Rio down South, Robert Wise would never have been forced to bring out the cutting sheers.”

“Or so says Pauline Kael,” Winn said.

“Kael’s research was solid,” J’onn said. “Even if she stole it.”

Winn opened his mouth in protest, but J’onn cut him off. “So, Maggie. Do you think you can do this? Do you think you can drop and take a look for the lost footage?”

Maggie turned away from J’onn, her head down, and for a long moment, she was silent. Then she looked up at Alex, and, with her voice shaking slightly, said, “It’s worth a try.”

#

They didn’t say much to each other after that. Maggie retreated to the projection booth while Alex worked her shift, exhausted but cautiously hopeful. The screenings that night were happily free of incidents, and during the final show of Carl Dreyer’s _Vampyr,_ Alex gave into temptation and slumped into one of the plush velvet love seats at the back of the auditorium.

 _Just for a minute,_ she told herself. The minute passed.

She woke to a blaring orchestral score and opened her eyes, startled and disoriented. The film was ending and the audience was already rustling with impatience, dropping car keys and gathering jackets and empty popcorn buckets.

“Shit,” she whispered and went to sit up and her hand met another’s. She looked up, saw Maggie, sitting next to her, her frame in silhouette.

“Oh god. I’m sorry, I fell asleep." She bent closer to the other girl. "Wait. What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

Maggie’s chin was set, her eyes stayed resolutely focused on the screen. “It’s fine. Just go back to sleep, okay?” Her cheeks were wet.

Alex bent closer and Maggie flinched and swiped a sleeve over her face.

“Maggie?”

“Go back to sleep, Danvers. You’ve got school tomorrow.”

But Alex only shifted closer. She slipped her hand up Maggie’s arm, the raised her other to brush away Maggie’s tears. Maggie didn’t move, but she stiffened at Alex’s touch.

“Is that supposed to put me in my place?” Alex said.

Maggie shook her head. “No.” Her skin was warm to the touch, but she was shivering. She turned to her, her gaze soft but uncertain. “I don’t know how you figured that out, Danvers.”

“Well,” Alex said, brushing back a strand of her hair. “I’m smart.”

A reluctant laugh escaped her. “I gathered as much.”

“And, there are some things I could tell you that might make you reassess my capacity to handle all this.”

Maggie averted her eyes. “Don’t be so sure.”

“Like my sister being an alien.” She looked away but felt Maggie’s eyes burning into her. “God, my parents are going to kill me.”

“That’s not a-“

“As in a last survivor of Krypton.”

Maggie went silent, and Alex watched with no small amount of satisfaction as that cocky head tilt righted itself.

“The cousin in Metropolis you mentioned.”

“The very one.”

“Holy shit.”

“And my dad works for a secret government organization, which is about as far as I can go there, other than that my sister’s big Costa Rica trip isn’t in Costa Rica but with the Amazons of Themyscira, which used to piss me off in this vague indescribable way. Until I met you and realized I was probably just jealous.”

“Wonder Woman?” Maggie said.

Alex nodded. “Haven’t met her though. God, Kara is going to be insufferable when she comes back.”

“I would be, too,” Maggie said, and she smiled, this time little more relaxed.

“So,” Alex brushed a strand of hair from Maggie’s cheek. “You’re not the only one with a deep dark secret, Sawyer. I might be young, but I think I can handle whatever you throw at me." 

Maggie smiled. “You made quick work of those paper bats.”

“See?”

The two of them broke out into laughter then, laughed until their smiles faded and Maggie took Alex’s hand.

“Alex, there’s something I need to-”

The house lights flashed on.

Maggie groaned as they squinted down at a figure near the exit. It was Mona. She tossed an empty box of Sugar Daddies into the trash bin, and then stood there, hands on her hips. “Found the slacker and decided to join her, Sawyer?”

“What of it?” Maggie was already standing, but Alex still held her hand, wishing for everything that they could just rewind to a few seconds before.

“Sorry to interrupt you ladies," Mona said. "But Hank wants you up in the booth for a final equipment check. Long day tomorrow. Monday’s half-price ticket day for the college kids.”

Maggie gazed down Alex, her expression nearly as bereft as Alex felt. She brushed a thumb over her cheek.

“Can we talk? Later?” Alex said. 

Maggie nodded. “I wasn't fair to you, and you need to know a few things, but go home and get some real sleep first, will you? Promise me.”

“I promise,” Alex said, and this time she knew she’d be able to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of notes for those interested. 1) Welles. I lost most of my respect for him after reading "Lunches with Orson" in which he basically sits in a fancy restaurant and shits on everyone in the industry (including Rita Hayworth). He's often painted as the artiste victim of the studio system, which may be true in part, but the way he let loose on everyone certainly held up the other side of the story about his lack of discipline. 2) Pauline Kael wrote a book on Welles, dismantling the auteur theory and the Welles genius myth. Good book, but she stole most of the research from a scholar at UCLA with whom she'd promised to share credit. She didn't.


	15. A Flicker of Doubt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part one of an update I'm trickling out. May be up tonight or tomorrow morning. A big thanks to Thelxiope for helping me untie a knot in this thing. Hopefully, the Eliza dialogue doesn't halt the suspension of disbelief.

Alex woke to her mother’s voice, terse and uncharacteristically loud. 

“It’s not ethical for one thing, Jack. No, no. You can’t just bypass-”

 Alex felt her gut tighten. If it was Jack Sollegio, that also meant a work call. Sollegio was a pain in the ass as Eliza put it, his ability to snag government contracts and funding giving him uncomfortable sway at the lab. That Eliza had taken it outside of her study, an inner sanctum where the door stayed shut and the Bach was cranked up to muffle the conversation, made her doubly uneasy. She threw on a hoodie and slipped into Kara’s old Beebo slippers and hurried downstairs. 

“Mom?” she whispered. “Is everything-”

Eliza held up a hand to silence her, signaling that she stay put. Alex lowered herself to the steps, watching as her mother’s expression went from grave to furious, and that crinkle that bore a striking resemblance to Kara’s carved itself into deeper into her brow.

“Because it’s the law, Jack,” Eliza said. “An Extraterrestrial Review Board. Ah… well, this is certainly new. We’ll talk Monday. That’s as far as I’m willing to go…yes, it  _is_  my decision.” She switched off the phone even as Jack’s voice, faint yet strident, continued to rattle from the speaker. 

“What’s going on?” Alex said.

Eliza forced her expression into one of casual cheer. “Remember that day out I suggested?” 

“Yeah, but that-”

She held a finger to her lips. “How does now sound?”

 

Eliza didn’t say more during the drive. In fact, she made a point of switching to the J-Pop station, the rare thing they sided against Kara over. She turned up the volume, started singing along to some ‘90s ballad. She seemed agitated, as if she needed the distraction. 

“ _Kitto ima wa jiu ni sora mo…”_ Her voice trailed off. _“_ Remember this one? Reminds me of our year in Nagano.”

“A little,” Alex said.  She didn’t.

“Hear anything from Hatsuki these days?”

“I got an email about six months ago,” Alex said, masking the bewilderment in her voice. “She was studying for the entrance exam. Todai.”

“Tough,” Eliza said. “You’re lucky we didn’t stay there.”

“Like getting into Stanford’s easier?”

She chuckled and drew a strand of hair from her eyes. “Not by much. Not as much to memorize.”

They pulled into the parking lot for Santa Inez National Park, stopping to pick up raspberry croissants and coffee at Alex’s favorite beachside bakery. They ate in silence, wrappers crackling between their fingers as they made their way across the sand.  The weather was warm, although a few clouds skipped across the horizon, threatening fall. Alex felt a new pang of sadness. The summer would be over soon. Kara would return and she’d be a senior— all things reverting to their normal state of abnormality. And what of Maggie? She tried to push down the thought, felt her mind swinging between the prospect of Maggie’s departure and whatever had her mother in this state. Halfway between the lot and the water’s edge, Eliza spoke.  

“Beautiful, isn’t it? It would be a shame to lose all this.” 

She was looking away, out toward the cliffside that blocked the view of Midvale on the other side, the spiny outcropping of Bridey’s point inclined drunkenly over the waves. 

 Alex cocked her head. “You sound like we have to move or something.”

Eliza placed her coffee cup down in the sand and shook out the croissant wrapper. A few crumbs caught on the wind and fluttered onto her shirt. She brushed them off and folded the paper neatly, methodically, into a rectangle the size of a stick of gum. She dropped it into the pocket of her sweater. Eliza and Jeremiah were minimal impact types, as cautious as archeologists on a dig, but her prolonged reticence was becoming worrisome. Alex dug the tip of her sneaker into a tangle of seaweed, kicking it away. “Mom, what is this about?”

Eliza nodded, more to herself, then turned back to face her. “Remember before the ships arrived and the portals opened? When all we had was Superman— and most of the planet didn’t believe his story?” 

Some of the planet still didn’t, Alex thought. Believing that Kal-El of Krypton was an alien meant that some aliens could be decent, law-abiding citizens. A supernatural being, it turned out, was more conducive to sowing hate.

“Back then, these hills were proof.”

“The fossils?” Alex said. That was how Eliza had gotten started in her field, examining the burrows and spheres in the rock formations around Midvale, searching for signs of alien life.

“Not the exciting revelation you expected?” Eliza said.

“You haven’t revealed anything.”

Eliza nodded, acknowledging her daughter’s impatience. “Back then, it was a big, ambitious project. Foolish even to aim for such conclusions. But then that first wave of ships came, and poking at old alien fossils became irrelevant while your father and I were suddenly in demand. I hadn’t even finished my doctorate yet, and there we were, working with Superman and helping set up clinics and quarantine protocols. And then there was Kara.”

“Mom," Alex said. "What was Jack was talking to you about?”

Eliza gave a tight smile. “Turns out my research was worth something, after all. Martian meteorites. Not so interesting when they had actual aliens from even more distant places moving in next door. It would have stayed quiet.” She bit her lip. “But for the structural similarities to Sarlitian crystals.”

 _Martian meteorites_. Alex lifted the lid on her coffee, blew lightly on the surface of the liquid as a chill drifted through her body. “Isn't that what they use in Phantom Zone technology.”

 “You’re not supposed to know that,” Eliza said.

“Tell that to Kara.”

With a sudden, cold clarity, Alex remembered a conversation they’d had, or rather a  stupid, petulant argument that Alex had lost. Kara was doing a report on capital punishment and had gone into a self-righteous snit. “Kryptonians don’t execute,” she’d said. 

Alex scoffed. “So, you didn’t  _kill_  anyone. You just wiped them from existence and made their copies live forever in some godforsaken netherworld. Gee, that’s a lot better.”

“Whaaahaaaa?” Kara turned to her, mouth wide enough to catch a tennis ball, and Alex shrugged, so certain of her ‘gotcha,’ she was flummoxed to see her sister snort-laugh. 

“Well, I mean. Isn’t that what teleportation is? Like why make a copy? Were your people keeping records or did it just make easier to sleep at night?”

Kara clapped a hand over her mouth. She was outright laughing now, her skin already streaked with tears. “Teleportation? Teleportation?" 

“Yeah?” Alex said. “What?”

 “It’s not  _teleportation_ ,Alex. It’s  _projection_. We don’t break down a person’s molecules, we just open a portal around them and use light to whisk them onto another plane. Rao! May as well accuse us of using the guillotine. Oh, wait, that was  _here_ , wasn’t it?”

Alex, red-faced and pouting, snatched her poetry text from the table and stomped away. “Glad you know that much? Don't know how you got that D on your history final.”

_Projection._

Alex took a sip. Some of the coffee sloshed over the rim and burned her thumb. She winced.

_Martian meteorites._

This had to connect to substance beneath The Orpheum. The same material that had interacted with Maggie’s psyche on that cold night long ago. That had acted on hers when she’d fallen headlong into their kiss. J’onn had said the Wescott Developers were trying to take control of the land. Were they a part of this as well?  And if the substance was in these hills, that could mean that the whole town, the entire coastline was under threat.

“Alex, I’ve never trusted Jack, but he’s never pressured me like this. He’s never had that level of power. But he’s got military contractors involved, and they’re—or he’s claiming—that this new Extraterrestrial Review Board can sidestep federal and state protocols. They want to use my work for something I fear could be very destructive.”

“Have you spoken to Dad about it?”

Eliza flinched at the question. She was shaking, Alex realized. “You do know your father works for the DEO,” she said.

Alex stepped back. She did know. Had always known. Even J’onn knew that she knew. It was another polite fiction their family upheld, that Jeremiah had an above board government job. But she’d never once suspected that mother didn’t trust him. 

“I do,” she said. 

“He might…” Eliza squeezed her hands together. “Your father might very well be involved.”

She’d been warned about betraying J’onn’s trust. Her right to continue at the Orpheum was predicated on their own agreed fiction to keep J'onn's world and that of her parents separate, to respect his space and his freedom. But her mother was scared enough to confide in her, and no matter how often Eliza’s serenity had infuriated her, it was something else entirely to see it disturbed.

Alex placed a hand on her arm. “Mom? There's someone else I think you should talk to. Come to work with me today."

Eliza narrowed her eyes. “You mean Mr. Henshaw?” 

"No," Alex said. 

They locked eyes and Alex watched as Eliza's filled with comprehension, even admiration. Her daughter knew more of the world than she thought. 

"You need to talk to J'onn."

**Author's Note:**

> I needed a little whimsy while working on Sometime Through the Stars, so here it is. Young people, I have not been in high school for a very long time. If I make any embarrassing slang mistakes, I would be grateful for your feedback.  
> Thanks in advance, Daddy-O.


End file.
